Elegance Under Pressure
by Laryna6
Summary: Noblesse oneshot collection. Frankenstein, Raizel: Blood and Salt. Gradeus, the Previous Lord: Axe Murder for Fun and Profit. Roctis, the Fifth Elder: Priorities People. Frankenstein, Tao: Anti-Personnel Sweets. Takeo, Tao: Cold Sniper. M-21: The Weak. Ensemble sans Rai: Than Never At All. Gejutel, Raskreia: Take Responsibility.
1. Blood and Salt

_Experimenting on yourself is_ not safe _._

 _This is an AU where Frankenstein_ _ended up contaminated with corrupt noble energy resulting in: some physical mutations; not being able to just walk up to Central Order Knights like a Kertia Boss... Ahem, Clan Leader as per canon since they can sense noble energy; and occasional episodes where he gets hit with an addiction-type craving to drink someone's blood and channel the energy into them. (Fortunately animals work.)_

 _That craving is a way of justifying M-24's behavior in his first scene, which doesn't fit with what's established about him a bit later. If every so often he just_ needs _to infect someone, and M-21 is used to that being a thing and cares about what his fellow M-series needs more than random people, that'd explain why they're both so ok with it._

 _By the time Franken hits Lukedonia he's probably had two hundred years to try to fix or limit the damage, so he looks about as human as nobles do instead of looking like a mutant and the episodes hit rarely (and can be headed off by drinking blood from one of the nobles he's experimenting on – they don't stay bound or turn into mutants, so it's safe to use them to earth the charge). Dark Spear makes episodes even more dangerous._

 _I may turn this bunny into a full fic, but if so I'm going to handle Franken and Rai's first meeting differently._

* * *

The red eyes that met his own were ancient behind the mask of noble reserve this person wore. Yet they were also mildly curious, and somehow innocent with it. Had he never seen a human before?

Cadis Etrama di Raizel lifted his palm.

A cut appeared in the middle of it. Had he slashed his hand with whatever power changed Frankenstein's clothing?

Red. Red on pale skin that seemed to have very little sun, even though nobles weren't troubled by sunlight. No, that was only the pitiful mutants, a curse inflicted on humanity by noble selfishness.

And human greed for power.

The noble who gave him sanctuary held his hand out, offering, as Frankenstein stared.

Shelter, clothing, denying the noble Lord what he wanted. Now this?

Perhaps drinking blood was casual among the nobles, since it didn't compel them?

If he drank, then he would have some sense of where he'd landed himself. What kind of person this noble was. If it was safe to stay here with this quiet, ageless youth.

Was this a trap? He'd studied captured nobles, but he didn't have complete knowledge of the abilities unique to the most powerful. Yet from all he'd heard, you couldn't control someone by giving them your blood. It was the one whose blood was taken who was putting themselves at risk.

The way Cadis Etrama di Raizel was putting himself at risk, by giving sanctuary to someone called a traitor, murderer, criminal.

"Bread and salt?" Frankenstein asked, taking the hand and stepping forward. He held the palm to his lips, looking down at the young man for permission.

He nodded.

"I'm not required to reciprocate, am I?" Frankenstein asked, just to be sure. "A human who has their blood taken by a noble… I've seen what happens to them."

"No," Cadis Etrama di Raizel told him. It was only when his eyes grew distant again, the way he had looked when the other nobles spoke, that made Frankenstein notice that the noble was focused on him until then. "I do not want to see you consumed by the hatred you bear."

Frankenstein hadn't lost that reckless tendency to experiment with himself. What was one more risk to take tonight, when he'd fought two clan leaders and summoned Dark Spear? Expecting sanctuary from a noble was madness enough.

Caution thrown to the winds, he did not touch a finger to the blood in the cupped hand to taste it, or even lick at it. He pressed his lips to the wound, as though he kissed a lady's hand.

Oh.

He didn't tear at the wound the way a mutant would. He didn't try to devour the blood, drain Raizel. It was enough to simply sip from the trickle.

It was so much more than simply enough.

Raizel was innocent the way a sword was innocent: he knew only one thing. Yet he knew that wasn't enough, wished he had another way to perform his duties, but despaired of ever knowing enough to find such a way. He lived for his duty, he could not seek to abandon it, seek alternatives. He was _trapped_ here, by his own choices and honor, for the sake of others.

Frankenstein was _safe_ here. Safe, with someone who shared his desire to protect no matter the cost to himself.

Relief drained away the energy keeping him on his feet despite the long chase, followed by a battle against two clan leaders and Dark Spear's assault. He found himself sinking down to his knees.

When he opened his eyes, he saw that Raizel had also knelt to keep his hand within Frankenstein's grasp, although far more elegantly. He seemed utterly composed, no trace of feeling that it was a loss of dignity to kneel in front of a human. Frankenstein was only on one knee, but Raizel was on both.

He lifted his lips from the wound, certain that the cut would close. It could only be Raizel's will that kept it open, when nobles healed so quickly.

Raizel's expression was not anything as uncertain as studying him. He waited serenely.

"Thank-" Frankenstein started to whisper, and cleared his throat. "Thank you."

Raizel nodded, and remained kneeling there until Frankenstein moved to stand. He was as utterly graceful in rising as he must have been in kneeling down.

He was… very old. He had a great deal of practice in such movements, after all that time.

Bedrock. Raizel was _bedrock_.

He was safe here.

He was _home._

* * *

 _Bread and salt is a 'sacred rite of hospitality' thing. In a desert or hot climate in general, you need salt to not die._


	2. Axe Murder for Fun and Profit

_Written right after 382 went up. There are problems with writing during an arc that promised to drop important worldbuilding info, but reading his motivation I was just 'wow, this could all have been avoided.'_

* * *

"Ah, Gradeus!" the Lord said cheerfully as the clan leader entered the throne room.

"May I ask why you have summoned me, Lord?" he asked, bowing.

"To make sure you'd heard the good news, of course!"

"Good news?"

"Remember that dreadful racket two nights ago?"

"Yes, Lord." He and the clan leader of the Ru clan had taken the opportunity to get some _real_ fighting in while other people had their soul weapons out. If it was noisy anyway, they wouldn't have to deal with the Bluster family complaining to the Lord.

The Lord also had exceptional hearing, so he always came in on _their_ side. And of course reminders that if they were allowed to leave Lukedonia to train, they wouldn't be disturbing anyone with the noise their fights created fell on the Lord's deaf ears.

"The humans have created something like a soul weapon! And this Frankenstein wasn't just able to survive being near a battle where clan leaders summoned their soul weapons, he was able to survive the attacks of two clan leaders trying to capture him _and_ escape from them! Isn't it wonderful?"

"Yes, Lord. I'm thrilled to hear about one more opponent I'm not allowed to fight seriously," he said, forcing the words through clenched teeth.

The Lord blinked at him. "Gradeus, the humans have come up with something that will let them survive soul weapon battles."

And… this had what to do with him?

"You and the Ru Clan were confined to Lukedonia until you could fight _without_ killing large numbers of humans, remember? So, if humans are almost at the point where they'll be able to survive being near one of your fights long enough to run for safety…" the Lord's voice trailed off, clearly prompting Gradeus to put the pieces together.

"Then… then you mean… we can go _home?"_ he asked the Lord, barely daring to hope.

"Not yet, but Frankenstein is a good sign that it will be soon. The nobles were confined to Lukedonia until the humans reached the point where the clans could once again go about their business without accidentally killing thousands of them. That's why it's such good news that a human gained the power not just to fight mutants, but to fight clan leaders. Once Frankenstein's knowledge spreads and the humans aren't so fragile anymore, nobles will be able to live according to their wills without having to worry about the humans again?" The Lord raised an eyebrow. "I could swear I explained this to you. I am your Lord, you know. You should listen to me when I tell you things."

"Yes, but 'you have to stay in Lukedonia until the humans don't need to be protected?'" Gradeus asked him.

"Until humans can look after themselves and aren't so fragile." The Lord nodded. "Nobles need to be able to live in accordance with their own wills. If you can't fight or train without killing humans and disregarding their wills, then you can't live the way you want. Obviously as Lord, it was my duty to come up with a way to fix that. The humans were evolving so quickly, but they didn't need to evolve strength when they had us to protect them. So, remove the nobles like the Landegre for a few dozen thousand years, make the humans use those brains of theirs to fend for themselves, and very soon the problem will be solved. Am I not a brilliant Lord?"

"I thought that meant we were stuck here forever," Gradeus said. "Humans, grow strong enough to survive my power?" But he had felt that clash two nights ago, and been grateful for the opportunity to do battle. "That was really a human fighting clan leaders?"

The blond on the throne ignored him, frowning. "Wasn't it obvious to everyone that Lukedonia was only a temporary measure? Be serious, why would I condemn myself to be stuck on a small island with Krasis Bluster for anything more than a hundred thousand years?" The Lord shuddered. "But it's been nowhere near that long, and the humans produce someone like Frankenstein? Escaping from two clan leaders, one of them the Kertia Clan Leader and the other Gejutel? Just imagine," he said longingly. "Urokai Agvain and Krasis Bluster's territories being far enough away they can't just pop in and stay in my castle for a few centuries. No more racket from clan leaders training practically every decade. No more Ru and Bluster clan leaders coming by to complain every century about the noise and the family duty to train."

It wasn't as though there was anything else to do on this island.

"The werewolves failing to follow the humans' example and evolve some intelligence won't be our problem anymore!" the Lord went on, ignoring Gradeus' glare. "They kept refusing to get the message to stop taking over the humans and killing all the strong humans with spirit, and obviously we couldn't have that, when we needed those humans so humanity could grow stronger. I don't know how many centuries Muzaka's inability to do his job delayed the day I could finally kick all of you off my island-"

Gradeus' eyes widened.

Tradio's conspiracy, the werewolves keeping humanity in its place and getting some revenge on the humans for the Lord imprisoning them in Lukedonia… _that_ was keeping them here longer?

"-but I can't really be that angry when that day will soon be here! Why, I almost found myself wondering if someone went and told the werewolves why the nobles were confined to Lukedonia, against my specific orders, and they were beating the humans down every few centuries so the clan leaders like you would be stuck here, Gradeus, and couldn't take your territories back from the werewolves!"

For the first time in thousands of years, Gradeus felt the urge to murder someone other than the Lord.

How he'd missed it.

"It works out well, doesn't it? The next time the werewolves try to take over humans, it'll give the humans an incentive to grow stronger. Once they exterminate Maduke and his band of bullies for enslaving and culling them to make sure they stay weak, I think that'd prove once and for all that humans don't need to be protected by nobles." The Lord smiled pleasantly. "The werewolves' inability to play nice with others will be our gain. Don't you agree, Gradeus?"

"Yes, Lord," he said, bowing with his fist in front of his chest. "How soon will the humans be ready?"

"Why don't you go ask Frankenstein? He's staying over at Raizel's house. Oh! I gave Ragar and Gejutel permission to use their soul weapons and train with him as much as they like, so he'll become stronger and the humans will be stronger faster. You should go and make friends with him too, Gradeus. He's not as strong as you – yet – but I'm sure he's learned a lot of techniques for fighting people who are stronger than him. If you help him learn more techniques like that, and he teaches them to other humans, then the humans will be able to fight to protect themselves faster, don't you think?"

"Yes, Lord!" Yes, yes, yes! "And soul weapons?"

The Lord sighed. "It's going to be so noisy for the next few decades, isn't it? But, as a benevolent Lord, it's my duty to make these sacrifices for the nobles. The Bluster clan will just have to bear with it the way you and the Ru clan have."

Gradeus' grin split his face, and he hurriedly forced the smile back within the limits humans were capable of. He didn't want the Lord to have to punish him for breaking the law by withdrawing his permission to train this human and leaving it to the Ru Clan!

"Maybe I should dispatch them to hunt down the criminals Frankenstein told Gejutel and Ragar about instead of the Kertia clan," the Lord mused, tapping his chin instead of looking at Gradeus. "Imagine, _Central Order Knights_ selling power and contracts to humans! When that means humans relying on our power instead of hurrying up and developing their _own_ power. Would you believe that Frankenstein came to Gejutel's attention because he's been using the power he gained to eliminate those criminals? Good for him! Although it makes me feel like Muzaka," the Lord groaned. "Needing another species to do my job and keep nobles from breaking the law. How embarrassing. Well, the criminals all have to die for breaking the law anyway, but 'forcing the rest of us to stay on Lukedonia longer' will definitely be on the list of offenses when they're forced into eternal sleep! Can you believe how selfish it was of them, to keep everyone else from going home just for some trinkets and power over humans?"

Gradeus' hand flexed, wanting to curl around the grip of his axe. "Those _bastards_."

"Do you know what Frankenstein said to Ragar and Gejutel? That he'd prove to them that humans weren't weak! That's exactly the kind of human we need more of. I wish I knew why humans were going around telling all sorts of lies about him, since that's not going to help spread his techniques so the other humans will get stronger. Why don't you ask about that while you're there?"

"Yes, Lord."

* * *

"So, you're the human who's trying to make humans stronger?" Gradeus demanded after finding the human in Raizel's mansion. He had to be the right one, it wasn't as though there were any other humans on Lukedonia, right?

"…Yes," Frankenstein said, glaring. "Why? Are you another noble who thinks that humans are nothing but weak victims in need of _protecting_ , that we don't deserve to have power only nobles should have?"

"Who said that?" the noble practically snarled. "Tell me who said that so I can _murder_ them."

"Gradeus," Cadis Etrama di Raizel said, appearing out of the shadows behind the human protectively.

That was why the human was staying with the Noblesse! It was his duty to protect the nobles from threats, like more of them killing each other if they were trapped on this island much longer. Gradeus had been _so close_ to challenging the Lord, suicide or not, just to make his anger heard, so many times, but then he would find himself visiting Cadis Etrama di Raizel instead, and talk with him about… he wasn't sure what, and then he was able to go back and fight with the Ru again. Even without soul weapons, it was _something_.

"Noblesse," he bowed to reassure him, before looking at the human again. " _Tell me who I have to kill to make you humans stop being helpless victims who get killed so easily."_

"If I knew," said the human, affronted, "I'd kill them myself. I did my research so humans wouldn't have to die without even knowing why, but an organization tried to use my work to enslave humanity. That organization was working with the nobles who sell contracts to humans, and if I don't find and eliminate those nobles, I won't be able to keep them from restarting the organization no matter how many times I stamp it out. Those traitors to humanity are also blackening my name, so humans won't trust my enhancement research and use it to become stronger."

Gradeus' lips pulled back, revealing that the human-style teeth had already vanished from his mouth as his skin paled and cracked like the surface of his icy homeland. " _Lagus Tradio. We start with him_."

The opportunity to fight another clan leader to the point of eternal sleep didn't come around _every_ million years, but he needed to toughen this human up. He wasn't strong enough to fight Tradio on his own yet, but Gradeus was sick of waiting around on Lukedonia. " _Come with me, and you will see why your ancestors named me the God of War_."

* * *

 _And then a lot of people who really deserved it got axe murdered._

 _The end._

 _The above, 'Tell me who I have to kill to make you humans stop sucking so I can go home,' and 'I am your Lord, you know, you should listen to me when I tell you things,' are rather the core of this piece, yes._


	3. Priorities, People!

_Working title of this one is 'Roctis.' Last chapter was Gradeus. Who knows, maybe I'll do a series, let all of the traitor clan leaders get to look like idiots. I certainly do want Gejutel failing to give any damns about Tradio's evil plan and explaining why he didn't go hunt people down to avenge his baby: because he knew that sweet, sweet revenge was already preordained… Gejutel is too old for this nonsense._

 _I'm generally of the opinion that if you create a non-human species and they're just humans in make-up that is an incredibly boring waste of potential._

 _If werewolves get turned on by fighting strong enemies, which was implied by the first werewolf to appear onscreen and has since been ignored, that may be why they're so determined not to acknowledge the new clan leaders as strong during the current arc. Not just werewolf supremacy, but being turned on in a fight might be almost as distracting (and bad for technique) as getting pissed off._

 _How werewolf society is organized vs. how noble society is organized definitely explains why every time they came into conflict in the past the nobles were kicking the werewolves' asses up between their ears –the werewolves probably did a lot more than the nobles did to keep down the number of clan leader-level werewolves. Fortunately for the good guys, the Union seems to have inherited that philosophy._

 _Maduke may be the evil counterpart of the Previous Lord – wanting to change how werewolf society thinks and functions, just not in a good way. And by sacrificing other people instead of himself._

* * *

"Cadis Etrama di Raizel… is alive?" Roctis was stunned, gripping the arms of his chair, barely enough of the control honed over tens of thousands of years left not to break it.

He heard the voices of the other elders and tuned them out.

"It can't be," Roctis said, still dazed. "He can't be alive."

"Are you still questioning the word of the Fifth Elder?" snapped the Second Elder.

"I'm still here, instead of already in eternal sleep. How can this be, if the Noblesse is alive?" Roctis asked, only half as a response to the Second Elder. "The Twelfth Elder was the first to die in South Korea, and he was my contractor. The True Noblesse would have sensed my power within him, and ripped my location and Urokai's from his mind. He wouldn't have waited to see if the Union would send both of us to South Korea."

"Didn't he usually stay in his manor?" the Third Elder asked. He was also confined, although for very different reasons.

After all this time, Roctis still felt a stab of guilt in his heart for insulting the Noblesse by comparing him to the Third Elder. Why, when Roctis had done so much worse to him?

"Even if Cadis Etrama di Raizel was able to forgive us for how we betrayed him, he would _never_ forgive the loss of his bonded." For the six of them to try to destroy the Noblesse, someone more powerful than them? It was not an offense against power, and he was always gentle and merciful. He would try to avoid having to execute them. But to kill a human? The human he had chosen to Awaken at the cost of his own lifespan, even though it wasn't his duty to protect humans? If Cadis Etrama di Raizel woke from what sent him into eternal sleep to find his bonded missing? "He can't be alive, or he would have hunted us all down until he found out what happened to his bonded. Fifth Elder, why are you so certain you faced the Noblesse?"

"I wouldn't recognize the Noblesse," she admitted, "but the Sixth and Seventh Elders said he was the Noblesse, and who else could kill them so easily?"

"Did they say he was Cadis Etrama di Raizel, or is there another Noblesse?"

"Another Noblesse?" Roctis heard the Second Elder pound his fist on the arm of that throne of his. "After all the trouble we went through to help you neutralize him, are you saying he can be replaced?"

"Calm down," said the Third Elder, trying to defuse the situation. "Shouldn't a new Noblesse be weak like the clan leaders and the Lord?"

"No," Roctis said.

"No?" inquired the First Elder.

Roctis _couldn't_ reveal that Cadis Etrama di Raizel spent his lifeforce and a young Noblesse would have more to spend. He _couldn't_ even though that would let the Union throw disposable humans at him until he perished.

It would grieve him so, to have to kill the weak, to know these people were dying because of him…

"The Noblesse must be able to face clan leaders and even the Lord," he said instead. "Their power removes skill from the equation. If this is Cadis Etrama di Raizel, Second Elder, then spending these centuries asleep must mean he's still weak and our efforts," our betrayal of that kind soul, who gave us so much mercy undeserved, "weren't wasted. A new Noblesse wouldn't be so weakened. Before you ask, how a new Noblesse comes into existence is only known to the Lords, and the Previous Lord did not know Cadis Etrama di Raizel's birthday." Meaning he hadn't chosen that day. Probably. Even the Lord could forget things.

"A Noblesse could fight a Lord? A real Lord?" the Third Elder asked, sounding almost excited.

"As the Symbol of Power, the Noblesse was the only check on the power of the Lord. That is why the clan leaders who resented the Previous Lord confining them to Lukedonia sounded him out, informing him of their plans."

"And he killed them for it," Maduke said disgustedly. "Killing his own kind for the sake of _humans_."

Such disgusting creatures, who killed and tortured so many of their own… so was it really wrong? It wasn't as though he and Ignes had added to what the Union was going to do already, surely?

"A different Noblesse might listen to reason," said Maduke. "Fifth Elder?"

"They called him Cadis Etrama di Raizel, and spoke as though they knew him. And he seemed to know them," she said, looking apologetic for the first time this meeting.

After all, why should she be sorry she'd failed to save two nobles and a creation of the Ninth Elder, when the Ninth Elder served a noble? For the werewolves, there was no downside to this… except the Noblesse's existence.

"It can't be," Roctis said, despising himself for being one of these people, playing their games. "If he was alive, he would have come for us immediately after the Twelfth Elder went to South Korea." Then his eyes widened and he strengthened in his chair. "Unless… Fifth Elder, was there a blond-haired man there?"

"Yes," she said. "I said the current clan leaders weren't as weak as we thought: the current Kertia Clan Leader was there."

Roctis' frown deepened. "We haven't been attacked outside South Korea, so his bonded must be alive, but Cadis Etrama di Raizel fought to protect humans and his bonded _wasn't_ at his side? It doesn't make any sense."

"Fifth Elder," the Third Elder asked, "is there anything else, no matter how insignificant it might seem?"

They all saw her glance at the Second Elder's monolith. "In addition to the two clan leaders and the Noblesse, there was also another human or noble there, who showed up to help Seira Loyard. The Seventh Elder kept interfering in my fight with him. They seemed to have history, so I assumed the man was another clan leader."

"Frankenstein." Roctis nodded, ignoring the hints of deceit. He already knew the werewolves were plotting. Were they hiding that Frankenstein was still alive because he was an enemy of the nobles who had sold contracts? "It's the only thing that would explain it."

"Frankenstein?" the Ninth Elder exclaimed, excited. "We must immediately send an expedition to South Korea! I don't care how many agents we have to sacrifice, the chance to recover the data he stole is worth it!"

"I agree," said the First Elder.

The data _Frankenstein_ stole from the Union? Insulting the Noblesse by calling his bonded a thief?

But Roctis had kept his silence on far worse things. "Be careful," he said. "My survival was a clue that Frankenstein is alive because _he_ would not rest until he avenged his Bonded. If a Union agent or Elder is responsible for his death, even if the Noblesse forgives them Cadis Etrama di Raizel will not. He cares for Frankenstein no less than Muzaka cared for Ashleen."

Killing a man's daughter to send Cadis Etrama di Raizel into eternal sleep… he'd done such a vile thing for his Ignes, but how could he not?

"He'll exterminate the Union for the sake of that human? Instead of because we were about to crush Lukedonia?" The Second Elder made a sound of disgust.

"We claimed that the Noblesse was the leader of our betrayal in order to confuse the issue," Roctis reminded him. "Clearly we didn't succeed in creating a rift between him and the Lord, if he fought alongside two clan leaders. Frankenstein may have vouched for him: he used to spar with the previous Kertia Clan Leader. But you're right: it is the Noblesse's duty to protect the nobles." Roctis ignored the Second Elder's snort. "The current clan leaders are children, and for the strong to attack the weak is an offense against the Symbol of Power. If Seira Loyard is there, perhaps she was petitioning him to avenge the Loyard Clan." Which he'd done. "We will come into conflict with him eventually," he said, heart tightening in his chest. "But we should have some time."

"Why are you so sure?" the Third Elder wondered.

"The most likely reason isn't something the Union can exploit," Roctis said.

"Fourth Elder, are you withholding information?" the Fifth Elder glared at him.

He'd accused her of the same earlier, but it was still worrying. Eventually, Ignes would be a target of the werewolves, once the humans were under control. Unless she was useful to them for her experiments and skill enhancing them…

"Under normal circumstances, the Noblesse wasn't called upon more than once in a few centuries. If he truly has reunited with his bonded, we should have had a few decades, perhaps a century, before Cadis Etrama di Raizel informed Lukedonia that he was alive and resumed his duties. Unfortunately, it seems that certain Elders," plural, "and their activities in South Korea intruded on his second honeymoon and brought us to their attention."

It took Roctis a moment to notice the silence.

The Third Elder was the first to speak. "Fourth Elder, are your translation abilities acting up?"

"I don't believe so. Why?"

"A second honeymoon is a trip a married couple takes together," the Third Elder explained.

"You have a point," Roctis said, frowning.

The Fifth Elder, who'd been staring at his icon, let out a sigh of relief.

"Why would they visit South Korea?" he wondered. "Do the humans consider it especially scenic? Then there's that neighbor of theirs, and I can't see Frankenstein bringing Cadis Etrama di Raziel to somewhere a war might break out. Frankenstein must have been living there: yes, he'd want to stay where he could confirm the Noblesse's health." Even if the Noblesse had sealed his power and banned him from performing experiments to gain new power, he would build a lab to try to save his bonded. Surely.

While a noble didn't even care enough to find out what happened to his own bonded… What more proof was needed that Roctis had abandoned his honor as a noble?

"You're saying the trip part was wrong?" the Fifth Elder asked. "Not the married couple part?"

This time, he tapped his fingers on his armrest. "Forgive me, the word marriage isn't very precise, so it's hard to translate."

"Understandable, when nobles reproduce asexually," the Thirteenth Elder said, speaking up for the first time.

That reminded them of his presence, but the Ninth Elder and Fifth weren't cleared for the truth either, so if they were going to evict someone from the meeting, they should have done it already.

"You're not saying a contract is anything like marriage?" the Third Elder wondered, and Roctis knew he had to nip that in the bud before there were comments about the Twelfth Elder.

"Contracts and marriages are both transactions where one person is sold to another person," no, a contract was more than taking an animal's blood to control them, but no one was going to tell the Union that the nobles weren't selling them _true_ contracts, "and there may or may not be some affection involved," in the Twelfth Elder's case, certainly not. "My translation abilities used a word related to married couples instead of slavery because they actedmore like one than a slave and slave-owner. They lived together for a decade before they contracted, which is a long time for a human. Frankenstein appointed himself Cadis Etrama di Raizel's caretaker and was always intruding on our meetings with him to bring him food or tea, although that may have been to spy on the clan leaders who visited the Noblesse."

Roctis heaved a sigh, noticing the Fifth Elder seemed relieved for some reason. What had she _really_ observed when she met the two of them? "After they contracted, they were always embracing in front of anyone who visited Cadis Etrama di Raizel. They just would not keep their souls off each other for five minutes unless we visited while Frankenstein was busy experimenting or sparring with Gejutel and Ragar." At least it gave him a good reason to keep Ignes away. It was a good thing Urokai had already returned to his clan, or he would have challenged Frankenstein again the instant he saw them.

"Their… souls off each other?" The Fifth Elder said, a little faintly. "So they really are married?"

"There wasn't a marriage ceremony. If there was, the Previous Lord would have made sure that everyone knew about it, I'm sure." Ignes would have received an invitation, and _what would he have done then_?

"But they're in love?" she asked.

"Yes. As I said, the Noblesse would be as angry if he lost his Bonded as Muzaka was to lose his daughter."

"So he sees the human as a child?"

Roctis had no idea what the Elder was getting at. "No, Frankenstein had already reached his age of majority when he came to Lukedonia. Second Elder, could you clarify the Fifth Elder's question?" Maduke was much older than Lunark, he might be able to figure out what the other werewolf was saying. They didn't have translation abilities, after all.

"She wants to know if the Noblesse and that scientist are having sex. Frankenstein was very strong: if we can capture him alive, he'd definitely be worth breeding as well as experimenting on."

"Ah." Werewolves wanted to fight and do other things with strong people, and that was only one reason Roctis hadn't revealed his enhanced power to any of them. "I'm afraid I wouldn't have any idea."

"Did their relationship seem romantic?" the Fifth Elder tried again.

"…Since they are enemies of the Union, I certainly hope they aren't going to have a happy ending." And yet how he wished… If Cadis Etrama di Raizel would only stay there, in that insignificant human country, if he would only abandon his duty and _live_!

"Did they fight?" she asked him.

"Obviously not, since Frankenstein is alive. Even that human couldn't possibly survive against the Noblesse. We tried, but we were unable to convince Cadis Etrama di Raizel to sentence him. Unfortunately."

"Not fight to kill, fight to prove their strength, for pleasure!"

"The Noblesse does not fight, Fifth Elder. The Noblesse sentences criminals to forced eternal sleep, and certainly not for pleasure." Not when fighting would drain his life away. Cadis Etrama di Raizel was too gentle a soul to enjoy attacking anyone, even in a training fight.

He could see her frustration: werewolves had no concept of elegance. "Do they give each other chocolates and flowers?"

"Frankenstein changed the flower arrangements in Cadis Etrama di Raizel's room frequently, and the Noblesse was also fond of sweets, so I'm certain he's introduced him to chocolate. Elders, is this information really essential?" He might have abandoned the nobles, but it was still uncomfortable to see someone embarrassing themselves by being inelegant.

"Fifth Elder," the Second Elder cut in, "You'll have to ask the human yourself whenever we manage to capture and interrogate him. Nobles don't gain power by breeding with the strong the way we do: for them, breeding produces weak children, so the clan leaders have no interest in it. Even the nobles that enjoy fighting aren't attracted to their opponents, although since it is meaningless to them they may agree to have sex in exchange for another fight."

She was staring at his green rectangle like that could not _possibly_ be correct, but he was still the Werewolf Lord. "If you say so, Second Elder."

The First Elder cleared his throat pointedly. "Perhaps we should retire to consider what we plan to do next. Fourth Elder, shouldn't you contact the others and inform them of the Noblesse's return?"

"Yes," he said.

"I'll do the same," said the Second Elder.

Roctis considered asking him how Gradeus was doing these days, but he needed to think of ways to ensure Ignes' safety and had no desire to extend the meeting further.

"If I may ask," said the Thirteenth Elder.

Roctis restrained a sigh.

"What is a Noblesse? And how could even someone like this Frankenstein survive stealing data from the Union?"

Silence. Obviously no one had any intentions of telling the scientists among the Elders the _truth_ – they were here to serve their masters. However, right now they needed the Ninth and Thirteenth Elders to produce results.

The First Elder settled the matter, even though he theoretically didn't have the authority without clearing it with the Second and Fourth. Roctis certainly didn't feel like interrupting. "The Noblesse is a being with the authority to execute clan leaders."

Which was completely inaccurate, but Roctis didn't feel like telling them anything about Cadis Etrama di Raizel.

Else. Anything _else_.

"Frankenstein was a scientist who enhanced himself and then stole data from a predecessor of the Union a thousand years ago. The book the Union discovered around five hundred years ago was likely written by him – that site belonged to one of the groups that eventually became the Union, and he worked there for some time."

"The writer of the novel _Frankenstein_ knew nothing," said the Third Elder. "We checked, and let her go in case he was still alive and decided to investigate her himself – he hadn't been seen in centuries. When he didn't show before the memory wipe chemicals used after all the interrogations gave her a brain tumor, I thought Dark Spear or side effects from one of his experiments must have finished him off at some point."

The rest of them had thought the same, much to Urokai's frustration.

"If we're contacting them, we should adjourn the meeting," the Second Elder said, sounding displeased by the fact they'd just given information to a human.

"Yes," Roctis said with a firm voice, even though it was a shaking hand that cut the connection.

Cadis Etrama di Raizel… was alive _._

He'd betrayed him to save his daughter: was there some way… Was it still possible for them both to live?

No, he admitted to himself some time later, watching his daughter and the Ninth Elder walk off together happily chattering about how they were going to perform some experiments.

Torture some humans.

No.

Cadis Etrama di Raizel would not suffer a monster like his daughter to live.

Which meant… he had no choice, did he?

* * *

"You seem to be in a good mood, Dr. Crombel," Yuri remarked.

His idol was alive and interested in men. Or at least man-shaped asexual beings – Cadis Etrama di Raizel's forged documentation identified him as male, which might at least mean the noble took male form.

Not that Crombel normally cared about the preferences of his victims, but he wanted F's mind to remain intact enough to discuss enhancement theory. The _power_ they could gain! And a being like the Noblesse, who could kill clan leaders? What a test subject! Seducing the noble into giving F power and letting him experiment on the Noblesse? A scientist after Crombel's own black heart.

"Yuri," Crombel said, smirking, "this is the second-best day of my life." After the day he found that journal.

* * *

 _We need more fic mocking Crombel. Or stabbing. Or both, both is good._


	4. Anti-Personnel Sweets

_This one's crack, yep._

* * *

"I am so sorry boss," Tao said, seriously. "I tried."

The principal shook his head, looking out over the athletic field. "You'd better give me all the relevant security footage so I can review it later, but I'm sure you did, Tao. In some ways this was unavoidable."

"I sent M-21 as soon as I realized what Shinwoo was carrying, but don't blame him either, please Boss?" Tao's eyes glanced over to M-21's body where it lay on the ground.

"Of course not," Frankenstein said, smiling reassuringly. "Let me guess: he arrived _technically_ in time, but not before Shinwoo told Master that they were sweet. Poor M-21." He probably wasn't even able to get the words out, faced with Master and not just a sweet, but a _gift_ from his friends. Saying he couldn't have them would have made Master sad.

Tao nodded, despondent. "I told Takeo to try to snipe the package."

Takeo would have been on the rooftop, and was probably still there. Judging from the area of effect, it looked as though at some point either Master or Miss Seira had stood up and turned around to see if anyone knew what was going on. Most likely Master: his abilities could have let him feel the reason this was happening, but he would have looked around for an explanation before resorting to unshielding, thankfully. Frankenstein shuddered to think about his poor master getting hit with this particular emotion from all these victims at once.

Hopefully Takeo would come to on his own before much longer, but if not of them would have to go up there to get him, they'd need him to help move the casualties… there wasn't enough room in the nurse's office. Well, indoors at least. Getting them out of the sun would prevent them from losing any more fluids and becoming dehydrated. "And Master and Miss Seira's bodies were between him and the targets." He looked past Tao to where the three nobles sat on the bench. Yes, Master and Miss Seira were politely ignoring the conduct of those in their vicinity, but Regis couldn't help staring.

"Boss," Tao asked wonderingly. "I shut down the cameras and called you once the wrappers opened," and now he was carefully averting his gaze, "but… how are you still standing?"

"I lived with Master for over a decade. Eventually I built up a tolerance. Once I've gotten them inside, see if there's anyone left in the staff lounge to take the students to the nurse's office."

Frankenstein walked around Tao and smiled. "Master, would you and the others mind finishing your ice cream in my office?" Thank goodness noble elegance meant no sugary drops would escape to land on his clean floor, even on a hot summer day like today.

That was… his brain froze for a minute as Master delicately licked at one of those drops. Part of the problem.

The reason there were so many drops of blood on his formerly pristine campus.

He was going to have to give the janitor a bonus again. Honestly, at this rate he should just buy the man an island the next time he went shopping for one.

Master nodded and stood, Miss Seira and Regis standing to escort him.

Then he reached down and picked up the remainder of the pack.

Oh dear. It was probably a good thing that Frankenstein would have to stay out here assisting with the triage of all the poor passed-out students.

This was going to be even more disruptive to the learning environment than the great ramyeon party. His poor students would be suffering flashbacks and walking into walls for weeks when they saw Master or Miss Seira.

This was why he hadn't told Master how to open and eat a banana. The combination of Master and Miss Seira… his poor, poor helpless teenage students, he thought. Looking down at Shinwoo and the huge grin on his face made him _twitch_ , but honestly this was Frankenstein's own fault.

Popsicles. How could he forget about _popsicles_.

 _Forgive me, Master!_

* * *

 _You'd think that Frankenstein would have written Rai an explanation of bananas but nope, he's still befuddled the second time he's handed one._

 _There's a fancomic illustrating why._

 _The incident where Rai ends up buying the whole school ramyeon is in the Noblesse S webnovel summary._


	5. Cold Sniper

_As part of my quest to write those giftfics, this is for Darkicedragon! Hope you like._

 _Prompt: Hmm, the trio and sleepy or caring for each other!_

 _So I thought, 'Hmm, what's a premise that'd make someone sleepy or need caring for?' and then I had Papa!Franken muse going 'how dare those incompetents hurt my kids' with attendant fussing._

* * *

After putting a blanket on top of the sniper and then reaching down under the scanning bed to plug in a cord that came from a blanket the Boss tched, looking down at Takeo as the scanner worked. "I was trying to prevent this."

"Is he going to be okay?" M-21 asked, hovering.

"Yes, once I find out how this happened and shut it down completely. The Union, in their zeal to leave humanity behind, has a positive fetish for transformations and actively tries to induce them by any method available. Apparently I missed one."

Transformations like Takeo's legs merging into a serpent's tail. The Union used animal genes to modify people – Tao was mainly spider and electric eel, and Takeo was mainly spitting cobra.

"The Union inducing transformations is normally fortunate for us," Frankenstein lectured, "because while it seems different for werewolves, for humans and the human brain, transformations are an abysmally stupid idea. They cripple fighting ability and especially fighting skill, which is why I don't have one."

What about when he got all black and purple – no, that was Boss getting covered in Dark Spear, not Boss transforming, Tao remembered and shut his mouth. He was trying to work on asking questions, but he didn't want to distract Boss from Takeo now, even if he wasn't going to forget an unconscious patient.

"Nobles only use their shapeshifting powers to change clothing, which is surprisingly intelligent of them. If you don't have practice moving around in a body, with certain strength and speed, then you won't know how to use it when the time comes, and the more practice the better. That's just one of the reasons why out of all the Union enhanced humans we've encountered, only one of them has the slightest clue of how to use his abilities – and I've only dealt with Yuri in an untransformed state."

Tao paled. "Yuri has a transformation?"

"Of course he has to – as I said, the Union positively has a fetish for them. I didn't spend that time observing Dr. Aris and Yuri _only_ for my own personal amusement. He didn't show it, but he's too smug not to have one."

"Just having a transformation gets you considered strong, even if it's useless like my claws used to be," M-21 said. "They would have dragged me back to the lab if they found out about the claws because they were a transformation, not because they were strong. If even someone weak like me could transform, they would have wanted to study how that happened so they could make stronger people have transformations."

"Which would have made them more incompetent, not stronger." Frankenstein frowned down at Takeo. "To make matters worse, there's no way for the Union to enhance aiming ability much above human normal, and even I don't have many effective options."

Tao and M-21 stared at him.

He explained that, "There are very few animals on the planet that use projectiles. Of them all, humanity is the best, bar the nobles. If you wanted to enhance aim, you'd use human genes." Which wouldn't add all that much to a subject that was already a human. "That's why the Union has done surprisingly little weapons research: they don't want to even the playing field by creating weapons ordinary humans can use just as well as the enhanced ones." Ones that would let the inferiors fight back. "Dr. Aris pretended to enhance sniping ability by leaving it alone and enhancing Takeo's agility and strength so his brain had higher capabilities to work with _while_ aiming, but if he were a noble, he'd be a Kertia with a gun, not a member of the Bluster Clan. I've been working out equivalents of some of the Bluster Clan abilities and giving them to him so his brain has more advantages to work with, because any enhancement to Takeo's body will throw off his aim, and the only way to fix it is for him to retrain it. I've had to be very careful changing him gradually so he doesn't end up in combat while unable to hit the blind side of a barn." He glared at the outline of the tail that replaced Takeo's legs under the blanket. "And now this."

A physical transformation. Something M-21'd thought was the mark of the strong because the Union said so. Well, this wasn't the only time it turned out the Union didn't know what the hell they were talking about when they told things to M-21.

"Now that it's happened once, his Union-rewired brain will reach for the transformation when he feels he's in deadly danger, and the middle of a battlefield is no place for Takeo to suddenly find himself in a body he has no idea how to use."

"Yeah, if he tries to dodge like normal and instead he's got a tail, he'll fall over. What are we going to do?"

"What you're going to do," Boss told Tao, "Is focus your battle plans on keeping the enemy far away from him so he doesn't feel his survival is threatened."

"Already on it!" Since he was their sniper.

Frankenstein nodded. "That's the best thing under the circumstances. I'm going to try to find out how the transformation happened and shut it down, but while we're not nobles, even unenhanced humans have some ability to control their bodies and I've been enhancing Takeo's healing abilities. There's no helping it: he's going to have to learn how to fight in this form or he'll get killed the first time he finds himself in an emergency. Or, at least, learn how to _fake_ being able to fight so the enemy doesn't realize he's become weaker instead of stronger."

"The Union assuming transformed people are stronger will help that, right," Tao nodded.

Takeo groaned under the blanket.

"You're in the lab on the island," Tao hurried to tell him as Frankenstein pulled back the blanket. "Your legs turned into a tail while we were training and you collapsed. We brought you back to the lab and Boss got an electric blanket to warm you up."

Frankenstein pulled Takeo's arm out from under the blanket and pressed something into a clawed hand. "Here's the temperature control. Let me know if you need different temperatures on different parts of your body – I have more blankets and heating pads. Given how often you end up fighting at night, I'll need to build heating elements into something you can wear into combat…" He frowned as Takeo fumbled with the dial. "Oh, tell me she didn't," he said disgustedly, and went over to the scanner readouts.

"You okay?" Tao asked Takeo.

He shook his head slowly, opening a fanged mouth to say, "Too hot, too cold…"

"So that's why the Union has barely made any progress over a thousand years: every time there's a breakthrough, the Union's incompetence kills them." Frankenstein walked back over, reached down, and unplugged the electric blanket.

Thank goodness that wasn't 'Takeo's going to die,' it was 'Takeo would die, but I'm Frankenstein. This is still going to be a pain in the ass.'

When they first came to the house, the Boss was kind of flippant about how D was building up in them, as though it wasn't something he really cared about. It was actually a bit of relief: they didn't _want_ a scientist to find them intriguing. They might have run away into the night. Now, he took Takeo's sickness as a personal offense.

Maybe it was, when he'd told them that _he_ was responsible for their bodies now, not Dr. Crombel or Dr. Aris.

So they owed those two nothing, so they didn't have to look down at their hands and think that those bodies were under the Union's control.

"There is a large difference between a lifeform evolved to be cold-blooded and a human with a broken thermoregulation system. Dr. Aris doesn't seem to have seriously considered the possibility she might _succeed_ in inducing a transformation," not in anyone as 'weak' as the humans she modified to be Krans' power-ups, "which says things we all already know about her competence."

"But Takeo'll turn back before too long, right?" Tao said. So there'd be time to figure something out for next time.

"No," he said, rummaging in a cabinet.

"No?" M-21 asked, alarmed.

Frankenstein shook his head. "It should have happened already. She wasn't expecting a transformation to occur. I theorize that if one _did_ occur, she wanted Takeo's body to still be in that state for the autopsy. His body is burning a great deal of power to remain in that state, which creates waste heat, and those scales just replaced the cooling system of most of his body mass." He turned and handed a pile of padded grey squares to Tao. "M-21, get the icepacks from the freezer, here are the heating pads. I'll need you two to try to keep his temperature as close to constant, the same everywhere in his body, as possible until the healing abilities I gave him do something about the broken thermoregulation system. I won't be able to install a method of transforming back until I'm sure I can keep the transformation from burning out half his neurons."

* * *

Takeo descended into a haze of wet cloths and hands on his forehead. At some point, someone must have hauled in a large steel tub (probably Frankenstein, who had given them a lecture about the anomaly that was modern manufacturing and how dependent it was on an economy and infrastructure the Union wouldn't be bothered to maintain when Tao asked if he stocked all his bases expecting WWIII) filled it with water and coiled a lot of his tail up inside it.

Alternating flashes of heat and chills running through him: Was this what a fever felt like? He didn't remember.

Those memories were wiped.

He didn't want to lose these ones to brain damage. Teira had told him about fevers, the grisly details of what the disease that supposedly kept them both shackled to the Union could do to her if he didn't perform well so they took good care of her.

Now people were taking care of him.

People touching him while he was delirious should have meant scientists. He should have tried to bite their heads off, or dissolve them with acid.

These hands, these hands were safe. He knew it. Maybe from the scents he tasted in the air. Silk and static. Fur and fang. Blooded feathers – no, the rotting bodies of the Union's unburied victims – no, tea and ink on paper.

Family.

He woke with his arms wrapped around one Warm Thing and his tail wrapped around another. He was still too cold, even though there was a sheet over him – none of the three of them liked using the blankets, weight on top of them felt like they were being held down, it wasn't a comfort. That meant there wasn't much holding the heat in.

One of the warm things felt him twitch and suddenly, cold!

His eyes jerked open and he found himself looking at Tao with an extremely betrayed expression. Before he could say anything, he yawned.

Tao apologetically put down the icepack and picked up a heating pad instead. "You ok?" he asked Takeo.

"I feel fine, just tired," he said, taking the heating pad from Tao and gratefully pressing a cheek against it. Pressing it to his chest might be the most effective, to take advantage of blood circulation? Tao snuggled up to his chest first, so Takeo put it on the back of his neck.

 _Aaaaah,_ much better. Normally he'd relax into heat, but this felt like, like how unenhanced people talked about coffee. He instantly felt far more ready to face the day.

"Oh, so you did end up cold-blooded! Boss thought so, since it's a lot harder for you to get rid of the extra heat when you get too hot than to warm yourself up, so it's better to have control over external heat sources than end up boiling in your scales!"

The light in Tao's eyes was relieved, cheerful… maybe a little fascinated. Interested, at least.

Seeing someone interested in what was happening to his body should have made him wary, but Tao was interested in what happened to _Takeo_. In learning enough to be sure that they would all be alright.

He remembered when Frankenstein had left them all of those treatment notes and explanations before he and his Master left for Lukedonia. Handing over valuable scientific knowledge and information so that Tao and Takeo could take care of themselves. Since then, they'd _let_ Frankenstein upgrade him, they hadn't been _dependent_ on him to keep them alive.

It _burned_ , that the false M-24 would have stolen that data, unencrypted for their sakes. That the Union was using something… something done for them as _people_ to reduce others to things.

Ouch!

From his look of concern, Tao didn't miss the smell of blood in the air.

"I clenched my fists hard enough my claws punched through the scales," Takeo said, knowing he was blushing and wondering if it was visible. Even taking D changed his skin – he wondered what he looked like now. He wiped his hand against his side (not on the sheets!) and held it up for Tao to see that the punctures were healing over.

"Are you up to breakfast and the lab? Boss has probably made something you can wear to breakfast by now."

Takeo did a quick inventory of his body, twitching the tail around M-21. "I should still be able to wear my shirt and suit-jacket?" Had he changed even more than he realized?

"Sure, let me get them!" Tao said, scrambling out of bed. "We can wrap the sheet around your tail so hopefully you don't fall asleep after you let go of M-21!"

They held him between them, steadying him as he tried to figure out how to slither to the kitchen. Takeo tasted the scent of tea and hot soup in the air while he was working on the entire concept of stairs – Frankenstein must have heard them trying to make their way down.

That was considerate of him. Something warm, something warm would help.

Like the warmth of the people pressed against his sides.

Like the warmth of home.


	6. The Weak

_It's canon that the Union is terrible at handling physical variation, so they probably do the thing far too many medical trials do and treat the male body as the standard body (which is A. scientifically dead wrong, the standard human body is the female body, and B. criminally negligent because the female body has more functions so testing on males can result in missing important side effects to the tune of dead babies)_ , _which'd explain why most of their membership is male, and the female enhanced humans we do see in the Union aren't standard mass-produced mooks but special projects or scientists._

 _The Union's institutional incompetence aside, Union culture practically worships the right of the strong to abuse the weak. Guess what happens in prisons and other environments like that when people have exactly_ no _legal/social protection against abuse?_

 _Therefore, warning for discussion of rape and institutionalized sexual abuse in this oneshot. Definite M/R rating for content here._

 _Also this is M-24/M-21._

* * *

As M-24 and M-21 left Crombel's office, hearing him say that when the mission was over he'd want them in to do more tests?

As a parting shot. Just when they'd thought they were safe.

The _bastard_.

M-24 looked at M-21, seeing the terror in grey eyes.

And the apology, because M-21 had to be blaming himself for Crombel wanting failures like them back in the lab.

M-21 was the pretty one. He should be scared for himself, not worrying about M-24!

M-24 was ugly. That and being a big, intimidating failure meant he had some 'protection.' So he wasn't in anywhere near as much danger as M-21.

He couldn't let M-21 get dragged back by the Union just because M-24 needed those pills.

It was bad enough to have Jake with them. Jake was trying to attract Mary, so he was making a show of how he wasn't anything like weak failure trash, but the instant he got frustrated over not making any headway with her, M-21 was right there and couldn't defend himself.

Not from someone like Jake. Not without revealing that he'd grown stronger and ending up back in the lab. Dr. Crombel was notorious for making sure that anyone who hid precious data from him suffered for it.

Jake didn't know anything about mind control, so M-24 had risked trying to nudge him away from M-21 a few times and it had worked, but he couldn't keep M-21 safe forever. M-24 knew his body was falling apart. He wouldn't be able to protect M-21 from anything for much longer.

As he held M-21 that night, he knew he couldn't let M-21 go back to the labs. Couldn't let him die there alone, used and used up without a protector or anyone to cling to for comfort.

There were those two noblesse. M-24 had sensed… something from one of them, and the noblesse had to at least be different from the Union? The two of them were protecting children. Even if it wasn't out of the goodness of their hearts, they weren't human. They wouldn't have any use for experiments supposed to give humans power. The Union mostly had a 'do not engage' rule for noblesse, and as long as they thought M-21 was still a failure, they might not bother to take him back.

It would be at least a little better for M-21 if he ended up with them, right? It couldn't be any worse.

* * *

"What makes you think I trust you? My trust is irrelevant," the blond noblesse told M-21, smiling. "Only Master's will matters."

Yeah, that made sense. In the Union, knowledge made you a little valuable, but _power_ was power. The scientists could do what they wanted to the test subjects, but it was the people with real power who controlled the scientists and kept them around because they were useful.

Cadis Etrama di Raizel, or 'Master,' was obviously a really powerful noblesse, with really powerful mind-control abilities. Frankenstein was a scientist and really strong compared to M-21, but not strong enough to fight off his Master's mind control, obviously.

That was a relief, M-21 thought. Frankenstein might be interested in human enhancement as a hobby or something, but Raizel didn't have to care what his slave wanted. He probably wanted him busy making ramen, managing the school, getting his master a cellphone and the other things Raizel cared about. That meant M-21 wasn't in that much danger of getting experimented on.

Raizel barely looking at M-21 twice… that was also a relief, even if he wasn't certain it was a good thing. He didn't want to barter with how much data Frankenstein might get from him, so the only thing he had to offer was his body.

M-21 didn't want to. Not after losing M-24. He didn't want to just _replace_ his comrade with another protector, even if that was what M-24 had wanted for him, so his comrade would be safe. So M-21 could live on and find their names.

It wouldn't be bad: Raizel had mind control, and he was obviously using it to make sure Frankenstein liked serving his Master. M-24 had used his mind control so M-21 wasn't really aware of what was going on a couple of times they were assigned near different Union bases and someone wanted a piece of the failure. If one of the unenhanced staff came by themselves M-24 could send them away, but he couldn't control more than one person at a time.

He knew he should try to make it clear that he knew his place, seduce them so they'd keep him around, but he wanted to remember M-24's hands on his skin and fangs on his neck, not anyone else's.

Not to mention that Frankenstein was obviously programmed to be _really_ devoted, so aside from as a test subject M-21 wasn't sure if the scientist noblesse really even registered him. Except maybe as competition for his Master's attention: was that why he was so annoyed to have M-21 and those human kids in the house? That and the crumbs.

M-21 wasn't sure if the dislike of things being out of place or messed up was a noblesse thing or Frankenstein being programmed to keep his Master's house neat, but either way, he didn't want Frankenstein to get angry that trash was touching his master. M-21 _really_ couldn't try to approach Raizel, not when if Frankenstein was jealous, M-21 wouldn't have any defense.

Well, if Raizel decided he wanted M-21, M-21 would be kneeling between those legs before he even realized what was going on, so there wasn't any need to worry about angering Raizel by not giving the powerful noblesse what he wanted. If he could program a member of his own kind so thoroughly, he wouldn't let an ex-human pet argue with him. He might find it entertaining to let the kids do what they wanted, novel to have someone treat him as a mere equal, but M-21 was under his roof. The enhanced human knew his place, so hopefully Raizel knew that.

* * *

"Soooo…" Tao said, sliding up to M-21.

"Not interested."

Both Tao and Takeo blinked at him, startled. "We weren't expecting you to submit," Takeo clarified. They might be stronger than him, but, "You have more power here, and we have you to thank for access to treatment and a base of operations."

"I didn't ask them if you could stay here because I wanted a piece of you." M-21 looked down at his hands. "M-24 was my protector in the labs. I haven't… I still miss him."

He finally looked up to see Takeo looking at him sympathetically, instead of as though he was weak. Somehow that made the ache in his chest worse.

M-24…

"So you want me to take over your duties with those two, if I can swing it?" Tao asked.

M-21 snorted. "You wish. I don't have 'duties.' Except for serving as school security and helping clean up." And Frankenstein would have them doing that soon enough. "Look, have you _seen_ Frankenstein?" Both of the nobles were gorgeous.

"He's very devoted to his master," Takeo said, eyes narrowing.

M-21 nodded. "If he weren't a scientist, I'd think he hadn't even registered that I'm attractive." The 'for a failure' echoed in his memories. "Nobles have mind control, and who knows how long he's been under. He's his master's. He didn't really want me here when I moved in, wanted to be alone with his master, but what his master says goes. As for _him_ , why would he want a piece of the Union's trash when he's got _Frankenstein_ just begging to serve him, with all that time studying just what his master likes? The fact I'm pretty doesn't seem to matter here, except probably as part of the décor. Frankenstein wants to surround his Master with things he likes."

Judging from the looks they exchanged, Tao and Takeo didn't think that M-21 getting left alone so far necessarily meant they were safe. They weren't failures, even if they'd just found out that they were meant to be used up and thrown away too, and that made them more attractive targets. Higher-status, when Frankenstein's master had to be someone of _very_ high status, especially in Frankenstein's opinion. Someone that powerful was worthy of a higher class of toy.

Tao frowned, looking disappointed and a little concerned. "Damn," he said, tapping his fingers in his knee. "I wanted to get a read on them that way." And probably see if he could use that to influence them. Tao clearly wasn't designed for raw strength, so he was used to securing his survival other ways.

M-21 looked back and forth between them. Were they…

Takeo shook his head. "We sometimes ran interference for each other, when one of us was wounded or needed to work," Tao, "but I wasn't Tao's protector. Krans was the protector of DA-5," Tao's snort was all M-21 needed to know for how much of a protector he'd _really_ been, "and didn't tolerate disruptions in the chain of command." Two of his bitches allying to limit his ability to have his way with them. Or annoying the scientists.

M-21 looked over at Tao, who wore a pasted-on grin. "I am – I was the weakest in DA-5," he said. "I wasn't in a position to protect anybody."

"I used to… for the other M-series," M-21 said. "Running interference…" Catching the eyes of the scientists so they went after him instead of the others. "It meant a lot to them."

They didn't say anything for awhile – maybe they could see the memories in M-21's eyes. Finally, he shook his head. "I appreciate the offer, but I didn't want you here to do that for me. Like I said when I asked Frankenstein if you could stay, I'm in debt to them and I know it. If they change their minds and decide they want my ass it's theirs, okay? I don't want either of you jumping in the middle to rescue me."

And then, only a few hours later, they jumped in to rescue him from Frankenstein's ramyeon recipe 'experiments.'

Eventually M-21 got used to Tao's periodic attempts to seduce him, or at least make sure that M-21 knew that he was available whenever M-21 wanted any – 'Hey, you already lost your shirt, want me to take the rest of it off?' and that kind of thing. Unfortunately for M-21, Tao had didn't try 'Hey is there anything _else_ I can do for you?' on Frankenstein and escaped ending up with chores, chores and more chores. Or maybe fortunately, since Frankenstein might have decided that if Tao was doing a few hours a day of housework, then it would only be fair to add more to M-21 and Takeo's plates.

He noticed Takeo glancing across the room at Raizel pretty often, but it looked like Frankenstein beating the crap out of him had taught him to keep a safe distance from the noble scientist's master. He probably figured it was safe to look, at least, when Regis was doing it too.

The noble and his adoring slave must have noticed, but probably figured that being adored was only Cadis Etrama di Raizel's due.

* * *

When Seira told them that Frankenstein was human, there was a little voice in the back of M-21's mind thinking that oh, so Raizel is into humans instead of just other nobles, then? An enhanced human, even!

It was when the voice got disappointed by the thought that Raizel still might not be into werewolves that M-21 realized he might have a problem.

Takeo clearly had a bigger problem, but at least he was getting periodically pounced by Tao with cries of "Tell me I'm still sexy!" after Tao bounced off Frankenstein's complete lack of interest in anyone but his Master yet again. It wasn't as though the offer from Tao wasn't still open for M-21, but even if he liked Tao well enough he just wasn't…

Oh crap, M-21 realized, watching Raizel drink his tea and imagining those perfect white teeth turning into still-elegant fangs.

The feel of M-24's mind in his, the sharp fangs in his neck letting the last of his fellow M-series take away his pain, at least for awhile… _M-21_ was the one with a noble kink, wasn't he?

He didn't want to replace M-24, he _didn't_ , but Raizel was so strong, and he was a good master, he cared about what Frankenstein wanted even though he clearly didn't have to, and Frankenstein was so happy serving him. Frankenstein was a human, so Raizel probably could mind-control him, but maybe… maybe it was like how M-24 had taught M-21 how to resist mind control, so M-21 could protect himself, instead of keeping him under? Even if M-21 wouldn't have minded being kept under, when it was M-24 and M-24 wouldn't have hurt him. Except no, because he needed to be able to _think_ to try to find a way to save M-24, the way Frankenstein wanted to look out for Raizel even if Raizel was absurdly powerful, not sick and dying like M-24.

The real noble was smaller and slighter than M-24, but that… it wasn't a bad thing. As long as they were talking totally unrealistic fantasies, M-21 could maybe curl Raizel against him? And pretend that he was the one strong enough to be the protector instead of being weak and useless. Pretend that he was strong enough to be worthy of Raizel's notice.

Yeah, M-21 thought, ducking his head to smile mockingly at himself. He was being ridiculous.

* * *

" _Because we're not sure we can protect you."_ Frankenstein's words echoed in M-21's mind.

Why? Why was Raizel protecting them when he didn't get anything out of it?

Except he wanted them to have a normal life.

Raizel was dying to protect them, just like M-24. If only he'd let M-21 make it up to him.

* * *

A knock on his bedroom door. Takeo was the one to slip in first, opening it carefully and giving him a look, asking if he was okay with company before coming in, followed by Tao.

Were they even healed yet? The Awakening would have helped, but they were on their deathbeds just hours ago, because of M-24. If that was even M-24.

M-21 just sat there, knees pulled to his chest as Takeo sat down to the bed. "We didn't," he said. "He was really sick, and he was worried that he might be a fake or brainwashed for the Union to use against me. At the beginning, anyway." It was only when M-21 brought him here… "I guess he just wanted to be in Frankenstein's lab more than he wanted to be in my bedroom." M-21 was just a failure and a fool.

Takeo let out a sigh of relief.

"You shouldn't be worried about me. You're the ones who almost died."

"You let the real M-24 inside your head, right?" Tao asked. "Like Boss and his master. If a fake did that to you…"

"If a fake did that to me and I _still couldn't tell_?" M-21 laughed harshly. "Even Frankenstein and _he_ couldn't tell, it's stupid of me to blame myself when I'm just a failure. I keep thinking that maybe if we had, I would have known and _he_ wouldn't be so sick and the Union wouldn't have the data."

"M-21, it's my fault, not yours, right?" Tao said. "I'm in charge of security. Everyone's supposed to look after each other here, and we couldn't…"

M-21 put his head back down on his knees. "Not… right now, okay?" Silence. "I need to be alone for awhile, and you know Frankenstein's not letting us off work." Not when they'd need something else to think about. Not when his master's school had to be protected. "No. No, I should… I need to make it up to _him_." He couldn't now, not when the Noblesse was in hibernation and might die if M-21 woke him up.

* * *

"M-21," Takeo said after they recovered from the battle they'd fought when Raizel had to wake to fight the Sixth and Seventh Elders. "Do you still want to make it up to him, now that he's awake?"

M-21 nodded.

Tao and Takeo looked at each other. "Boss might need distracting," Tao said. "And if _he's_ weak like this, _his_ control might slip enough that Boss could actually punish us for letting _him_ use up his lifeforce saving us."

Takeo closed his eyes and nodded, ashamed. He was the one who said that if they stayed they'd just die rather than let Raizel spend his life for them. It must be eating him up inside, that Raizel ended up that sick saving him. "Go, M-21."

* * *

Finding the Noblesse in the parlor, M-21 knelt before _him_. "I know you're probably not interested," and it wouldn't make up for failing them anyway. Drinking someone's blood couldn't put Raizel's lifeforce back or he'd be fine with someone as powerful as Frankenstein. "But…"

Red eyes looked down at him, tired and unreadable. "Is this what you want?"

"Yes," M-21 said.

Raizel nodded and stood. M-21 followed him not to Raizel's bedroom, but his own. M-21 raised his hands to take his clothes off after closing the door, but then paused, not sure if the noble might want to to do it himself, or what. He looked up to see Raizel sitting on the side of M-21's bed, looking at him. He went to kneel at Raizel's feet, and Raizel's hand descended to pat him on the shoulder, the way he did when Frankenstein was upset.

That was probably reassurance, so he'd guessed right? M-21 leaned forward, but Raizel's knees were still together.

"This is not what you want," the noble said, and pulled M-21 up by his shoulder, delicately.

Oh. M-21 tilted his head, pulled his hair away from his neck and unbuttoned his collar. "Yeah." That way, Raizel would be in his head, he could tell M-21 what to do so he'd know what Raizel wanted.

He straddled Raizel's lap so the noble could get at his neck. He felt Raizel pull in a breath, pull back to open his mouth…

…And bite down.

The sensation of a bite there always made M-21 shudder, even before it started to mean _M-24_ to him, meant being held and sex that wouldn't hurt after the bite. Meant he _wasn't alone_. In M-24's arms, he could ignore the ever-present cameras.

 _Warmth_ , he felt, his mind held like a precious thing, care and concern and worry. Even sick and drained, Raizel still cared that M-21 was upset, wanted to make him feel better and didn't know _how_.

But M-21 seemed to know what he needed, so Raizel would do that for him, withdrawing fangs to kiss him on the lips and it was only after M-21 found himself on top of Raizel on the bed and Raizel was tilting his shoulders so M-21 could slide the shirt off that he realized _Raizel was a virgin_.

He had no idea what to do, had never done this before, and had let M-21 have his first kiss, let him remove the uniform Frankenstein designed for him, because he loved M-21 and would do _anything_ for him. He only knew to kiss him because that was what M-21 had wanted him to do.

Raizel… Raizel _didn't think he had any choice_ , M-21 realized, and M-21 had taken advantage of Raizel's generosity to… _What had he done?_

Now the noblesse was more upset, and he felt the panic behind Raizel's eyes, so sad that he'd failed M-21.

Felt the noble reach for Frankenstein (the one who looked after him, the one who rescued him from a place where he existed only for a purpose and had nothing but a window) for _help_ , and M-21 trembled with relief as well as shame, because Frankenstein wasn't Raizel's slave, he was Raizel's _protector_. The scientist was going to _kill_ M-21 and he would deserve it.

He felt the bond between Raizel and Frankenstein open, love and trust without reservation and _so much love_. It wasn't Frankenstein that belonged to Raizel, they belonged to each other, and he, he, how could he profane that? Touch it with his dirty hands like the trash he was, insult them by thinking they were like the Union after everything they did for him? He tried to shrink back from the mental link, because how could he profane something like this, but all he could do was collapse there shuddering.

" _He is crying,"_ M-21 felt Raizel say as the noble sat up in bed to try to pat M-21's back, still wanting to calm him down.

He did this, and Raizel still called out to Frankenstein for _help_ , because someone precious to him was sad.

M-21 sobbed quietly (couldn't let them hear you), shoulders heaving, not even trying to escape.

When arms wrapped around him he cringed, but Frankenstein didn't pull M-21 away from his beloved master. Instead, he pulled both M-21 and Raizel to lean against his chest, turning M-21 to face him. "It's alright," Frankenstein said softly, and M-21 felt that echo inside his soul, through Raizel's. " _It's alright_."

He, he wasn't angry?

"Not at you," Frankenstein assured him. "You didn't do this to yourself. There is no harm done."

"But, I nearly…"

"And there would still be no harm done if you had slept with him," the older man promised him, letting M-21 feel the weight of his age, that he knew what he was talking about. "You had Master's consent, and rape is a violation of not just the body but the soul in humans for biochemical and symbolic reasons. Master is a noble. They don't reproduce sexually, so they don't use sex to bond with others. For them, it's just a physical activity. Although some of them find it a very pleasant one, you may have noticed that most nobles aren't very physical. Touch just isn't important to them the way it is to us. You might as well have asked Master to spar with you… Well, no. It would have been much worse if you asked Master to spar with you." It would have drained Raizel's precious remaining lifeforce; M-21 could feel Frankenstein curling protectively around that precious soul, and M-21's with it.

Raizel patted M-21 on the shoulder. "I am fine."

" _No, you're not_ ," was the automatic reaction from both M-21 and Frankenstein. He was sick and tired and needed to let them protect him.

" _No one but Frankenstein has ever wanted to protect me before,"_ echoed in both M-21's and Raizel's memories, for them and Frankenstein to hear, and Raizel _loved them so_.

"I am at fault for not trusting Frankenstein's judgment." Raizel sighed into the hair at the back of M-21's neck.

" _Huh?"_ M-21's emotion was treated as a question, and Raizel sent back not words but memories of sensations that took a moment for M-21 to understand since he didn't have those senses.

M-21, Tao and Takeo's strange mix of wanting and not wanting to be touched, changing over time from offer (which was nice of them, but Raizel did not do this so they would give him things) to desire. Frankenstein saying that no, it would not be good for them to give them what they wanted, but M-21 had been so upset and if this was what he thought would make it better then Raizel…

 _Should have listened to Frankenstein_ , M-21 felt, once again in agreement with the other human.

"For humans, sex really is like a contract of the soul in some ways," Frankenstein told Raizel.

Raizel nodded. "I should have trusted your judgment." He had tried to, believing that Frankenstein knew what he was talking about, but it was hard for Raizel to equate physical interaction that for him was…

Huh. For Raizel, there wasn't much difference between taking a step with his actual legs and pushing the button to move a character on a screen. That might explain why he had such a hard time grasping that if he shot someone's avatar in a video game it wouldn't _really_ hurt them in real life.

He felt agreement: Raizel had seen Shinwoo shot in the game many times and he was okay afterwards, but the noble kept wondering if he could take that risk with the children?

So how could physical contact be anything like the bond he had with Frankenstein, where their souls were tangled up together so intimately?

And M-21… couldn't say that Raizel was wrong. Sex, even with a comrade like Tao, was sex. It could be anywhere from good to agony, but… M-24… someone who _loved him_ …

He pressed his face into Frankenstein's neck to hide the renewed tears. It was reflex not to show weakness, even if it would be obvious through the link. Raizel pressed against his back, and M-21 didn't mind that the coat draped around them was a labcoat, just for that little bit more shelter. This was Frankenstein, so it smelled like lavender and cedar instead of human terror.

That was the other reason Raizel had gone for his blood first, before doing anything sexual. Because Raizel _knew_ that this kind of contact was important, meaningful, so he wanted it for M-21. That was so much more important to Raizel than his own pleasure, and…

Raizel was just so kind. He'd given him a home, and it wasn't gratitude that made M-21 want to serve and protect him, it was the fact that Raizel was _a person like this_. Feeling it like this, someone so exalted caring for him? M-21 was Raizel's. Always. As long as they lived and longer. He would do anything to protect him, and he felt that emotion mirrored.

He felt Frankenstein's smile into his hair: yes, he understood. That was why he was Raizel's, even though Raizel didn't really know what to do with him other than stare at all the things Frankenstein did for him and wonder how the human could be so wonderful.

And simultaneously so difficult, but Raizel really wouldn't have dear Franken any other way.

" _Do you…"_ M-21 tugged at Frankenstein's shirt.

"No," he said, quite happy about it. "I was never fond of bodily fluids, and I turned off my sex drive and sexuality when the Union started looking for people I cared about to use against me. Since Master is asexual, I'm quite content with no longer feeling the _slightest_ bit of sexual attraction to people who are mainly _less than five percent of my age_." Because that would be wrong in Frankenstein's mind, given the power differential. He couldn't take advantage of those who couldn't defend themselves against him, especially in a battle of wits. M-21 felt the 'aha!' moment. "So that's why Tao and Takeo were insisting I examine them closely to be certain Master hadn't spent his lifeforce in vain…"

A query from Raizel – if sex was like _their_ contract?

Not all contracts were this intimate, thought M-21. They couldn't be, otherwise Gejutel wouldn't have offered them to M-21, Tao and Takeo even as some kind of test.

Frankenstein chuckled, and M-21 could feel his breath on his ear. "Ah, good point, Master. I do miss scandalizing the clan leaders. This younger generation…" It was half that Frankenstein didn't want to do quasi-sexual things, or at least the equivalent of kissing, in front of the young and half that he was fairly certain that instead of being scandalized most of them would want to watch and in some cases take notes. Well, if their alternative was going up to _Gejutel_ and asking him for the noble version of the talk…

"I'm sorry," M-21 said, ashamed. "We thought that…" Scientist and person with power or not, how could he have insulted them by thinking they were like the Union?

"That he broke me to harness? You're not the first." Frankenstein's memories were tinged with amusement, irritation and the desire to commit murder – the traitor clan leaders. "I let you think that. You were less frightened when someone held the scary scientist's leash. And it was all that you knew." Such poor children. "But even in that hell, you still tried to protect each other." He was _proud_ of them.

Not failures, not in their eyes. So, so strong.

He wasn't the one they should praise. "M-24 was the one…"

Chiding from Frankenstein and disapproval from Raizel: they both were certain that M-21 had protected him too, and… he'd tried.

He'd tried so hard, and M-24 died where M-21 couldn't reach him to hold him as he died.

An image in Raizel's mind, looking into the rubble to see not a smashed body, but M-24's soul flaking away into energy, lingering to speak to M-21 even as it fell apart. Dying the way a noble died, but the mind in that body was originally a human mind, not a noble one. So it was possible that the noble soul that came from that heart died, and the human part of M-24 remained. It was difficult for Raizel to know, when he'd never seen such a thing, and he wanted M-21 to be happy _so much_ …

Frankenstein's own confession that he'd been very close to certain M-24 was a fake, but everyone had already known to be cautious of this M-24 and it couldn't be _entirely_ ruled out that he was the real one under some form of mind control, in which case there was still hope Frankenstein could find and remove it. More hope if the controlling personality thought they were still fooled and didn't activate any contingency plans.

"It was my own hubris that cost me my lab, M-21."

No. It was Frankenstein's desire to make M-21 happy.

He could feel his connection to them beginning to fade – " _The power inside you is no small thing,"_ Raizel told him.

"If it weren't for your werewolf heart, once Master drank your blood? He is the True Noblesse."

"I would be his?"

"No." M-21 felt Frankenstein's sorrow. "His soul would be yours." A grieving whisper through their bond: " _He has so little of it left."_

M-21 paled. It made it _worse_ to feel that Raizel didn't mind. Truly. If he could protect them and give them the chance to be happy, then paying with his own life and soul was worth it.

"It's fine," Frankenstein promised him. "You're too much of a werewolf for even the Noblesse to form a permanent contract with you."

The noble was still pressed against him, shirt unbuttoned and one shoulder bare, the way Tao liked his shirts when he wasn't in uniform. He was Cadis Etrama di Raizel, so when M-21 squirmed a little in their grasp to look at him, instead of looking messed up he looked artistically disheveled, like something out of a centerfold. Still utterly in control, inviting but not vulnerable.

Even if he was so vulnerable to them.

M-21 felt a chill of terror run down his spine. "Did you even _shower_ before putting your hands all over Master's body and letting him bite your neck?" Frankenstein demanded.

 _Oh crap_ , M-21 thought, even if with the contact not quite gone he still could sense that Frankenstein was _mostly_ giving M-21 a hard time about that so M-21 didn't keep thinking that he'd nearly forced Raizel _that_ way.

He felt Raizel's little sigh, the breath on his skin as well as the emotion through the link, and then it vanished.

They didn't let go. Frankenstein just gave him a squeeze and tucked M-21's head under his chin again. Raizel still leaned against him, and patted his shoulder.

"Better?" Frankenstein asked softly, corner of his mouth still turned up but not intending to tease him, not about this.

He gave a small nod.

They still didn't show any signs of leaving. Every time they shifted he thought they must be getting bored, or ready to get up, but it turned out to be Raizel deciding to pat him again, or Frankenstein smoothing his hair.

He remembered the weight of Raizel's age, the patience and care both of them had, and knew they really didn't mind staying here as long as he wanted them.

* * *

"I'm so sorry M-21! He got away from us!"

"We were locked in the underground complex until he came and let us out," Takeo said. "Are you alright?"

M-21 wondered what he looked like, lying on top of his sheets with the bed clearly mussed up, along with his clothing. He'd unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt so Raizel could reach his neck without a mouthful of cloth – his werewolf healing had taken care of the punctures already, he felt when he touched his neck. "I'm fine," he said, feeling a warmth in his core, even though he knew he'd done something wrong.

It was _wonderful_ , but he couldn't brag about it when Tao and Takeo weren't part-werewolves. Hopefully Raizel wouldn't drink M-21's blood again either, but it was just… "So good. So _warm_."

"So you got lucky, M-21?" Tao asked, happy for him, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"No," he said, "but he drank a bit of my blood, and I felt him in my soul. He… He loves us. He really does. He just wants whatever will make us happy. He would sleep with us, because we want him, but Frankenstein thinks it wouldn't be good for us."

"Indeed it wouldn't," the scientist said, appearing in the doorway. Tao and Takeo froze, like they were watching death approach with a cup of tea.

Frankenstein sat down at the head of the bed, a less threatening distance from Tao, and waited for M-21 to sit up before he handed him the teacup and saucer.

"It's okay to drink this in bed?" M-21 asked, stunned even after everything. His cheeks felt warm, and not from the steam.

"It won't stain." Frankenstein patted him on the shoulder, giving him plenty of time to see that the hand was coming so he wasn't startled and there was no risk he'd drop the cup. "Drink up; you lost some fluids."

"Not really." Raizel had barely taken more than a few drops… Right, the tears.

He drank obediently, and the warmth in his stomach reminded him of feeling warm inside. "Do you feel like that all the time?" he asked Frankenstein. How did he get anything done?

Blue eyes closed for a second, and when they opened they were as soft as the smile on his lips. "We keep our bond closed most of the time, so we don't intrude on each other, but it is always there. A foundation."

He nodded: that matched what he'd felt back then, before his link to M-24 faded, even if it had never been as strong as what the noblesse could create. "I'm sorry. I can't let him die because I'm a failure. I can't take that away from you, after everything you did for me." Not when Frankenstein was Raizel's protector.

Frankenstein reached out, to tilt M-21's chin up. "This is your home too, and it makes him happy to have all of you here. To see you living happy, normal lives in whatever fragments of peace we can give you. For Master to be happy, to have a normal life with friends and people to share his home: that is also my wish. Why should you feel that you owe us for granting our wishes? No one here owes anyone anything: we are all just doing as we wish."

The strength in those fingers, the gentle command in their touch… M-21 wanted to dip his head again, to take them into his mouth. It made him blush.

The scientist sighed. "I'm sure the Union saw affection as a weakness. Sex was strength, someone taking what they desired. It was only safe for you and the others to comfort each other when it was sex, wasn't it?"

M-21 blinked and gave a small nod.

"Hypersexuality is a common result of abuse: people are given the impression that they have no value other than sex, and humans _need_ to feel loved and valued. But in your case, I think there's another element. You were told that you were weak and therefore 'deserved' to die, but if someone was stronger than you, then they might be more likely to live… and you wanted the people who showed you kindness to live. If they could 'make' you submit, then that 'proved' they were stronger than you. How long did you know that you were the strongest among the M-series?"

He slid his eyes away, unable to answer that question, feeling the sting of tears in his eyes again. He was the first to stop needing the pills, and in the end _none_ of the others had survived long enough to reach the same point. Maybe he'd been lying to himself, and they never would have. In the end, he really was the only one strong enough to live.

"Instead of using your strength to push others down so you could survive, you concealed it and let yourself be hurt to try to help your friends survive… that's not weakness, M-21."

It just made him blush harder, when he wasn't used to compliments like that. He was a failure, so he didn't _get_ compliments except on his looks, and that meant sex was probably going to happen when he was trying not to be turned on.

"Drink up," he heard, and obeyed the gentle voice, missing the hand when it left.

Frankenstein took the cup when it was empty, and he heard the clink as it and the saucer were put down on his bedside table, out of danger of getting tipped over. "It's not wrong for you to want to have sex with either of us – I'm handsome and Master is exquisite, and you are a healthy young man – but you know it's important to us that you understand that you do not have to do _anything_ for us to love you and care for you."

He didn't need to blink the tears from his eyes to know that Tao and Takeo had to be watching, hypnotized, instead of running for cover, away from something as private, as dangerous, as tenderness.

When he heard Tao shift on the bed it was towards them, not away. No wonder – M-21 wished he could see it, Frankenstein had to be gorgeous like this, without the edge of the terrifying scientist to push them away. But his vision was so blurry…

"M-21, are you okay?" Tao asked instead.

Oh. He was crying.

He was scaring them, M-21 realized. Scientists… scientists weren't nice to people who cried.

"It's fine," he said, and to prove it wasn't a lie he shifted closer to Frankenstein and leaned into him when arms wrapped around him.

"Shhh," said a calm voice. "It's alright, M-21." Frankenstein looked up. "Forgive me for locking you two in the lab. Master told me that M-21 was very upset, and I'd already realized that the two of you were plotting something."

Tao shifted on the bed, probably nervously. Caught.

"They were helping me," M-21 reminded him, tugging at his shirt a little.

"Distracting me while you made your petition to Master, I know." And genuinely wasn't angry. "It was very brave of you to try to seduce me to 'punish' you to help your comrade," he told them, "but I'm not interested in sleeping with anyone. Neither is Master. You're all very handsome young men, but you're my employees, living under Master's protection and none of you are anywhere near legal on Lukedonia. Master and I were aware of your assumptions about our relationship, but it seemed better to just let sleeping dogs lie. Master doesn't find the concept of sex objectionable, so since M-21 thought it would make him feel better, he was willing."

"Willing? He thought he had to, that he didn't have a choice. It was like when I asked him to Awaken that fake," M-21 said, scowling at himself and wiping his eyes. He found himself pulling back from Frankenstein a little, and realized it was because he didn't deserve this.

The older man shook his head. "There was no need or obligation. He just wanted to make you happy, M-21. Love may cloud people's judgment, but certainly not enough to invalidate consent." He sighed, slightly theatrical. "I blame myself. Since you are all sexual abuse victims I didn't want to risk triggering you when you might find yourself in combat, but you are working at a high school. You need a good understanding of sexual health, consent and how to identify signs of abuse."

He gave them a worrying smile. "I'll write up a guide and have it ready for you three tomorrow. You will be tested on the material."

Tao laughed nervously, but M-21 managed to smile, knowing he was scaring them just to distract them and make them feel better. Like tests were the scariest thing they had to worry about.

Under this roof, maybe they were.


	7. Than Never At All

_Well, you (or a few people) asked for it, so here is that one depressing bunny. Decidated to an-earl, so you know where to assign most of the blame._

 _'Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all,' and the MIB movie response 'Try it sometime.'_

 _The bunny was that since self, soul and memory are connected, Rai burning up his soul might take Frankenstein's memories of Rai with him, and then what is Frankenstein supposed to think happened to explain how he got from what he last remembers to where he is now? Well, what was the assumption of so many of the readers, before we knew more about what kind of person Rai was, and also Frankenstein behind the hard person he was forced to become, fighting the Union?_

* * *

The 'texts' (he still remembered words and concepts, at least, but it would likely take him _years_ to relearn what he lost, what he missed) painted a harrowing picture.

Orders. Orders from a noble, accepted with slavish eagerness, even _happiness_ to be given demands without even the courtesy of a please.

'Good job,' he read, and heard 'Good boy,' an owner pleased with a pet. The noble even gave him a pet name.

Bile rose in his throat as he read the symbols accompanying his own messages, marks of eagerness and happiness and content worship. A curved line – 'tilde' – like a dog wagging its tail.

If there were any gods but the damned nobles, he'd thank all of them for the fact he didn't remember.

It was easier than it should have been to not shake in horror, to keep reading, to finally put down the cell and start going through the _lessons_ he wrote out for the noble. How much of his knowledge did he give the enemy?

Anything it wanted.

The center of his chest felt hollow.

How much of his soul did that thing rip out? How much of him… how much of him did it drag to hell with it when it died?

How much of him was _left_ , after what it did to him?

He rested his head in his hands for a moment. There were pictures of the noble in that phone. He couldn't look at them without trembling with emotions he couldn't name and didn't want to. Something in him still craved the monster that did this to him.

He was not going to throw up. If only it was that easy to feel clean. There were traces of foreign energies in his soul even now, and no amount of scrubbing or clawing at his skin would get them _out_ of him. A human infected with a noble's energies was a vampire slave. He _was_ a vampire slave. For _centuries._

The last thing he remembered, he was being pursued by two clan leaders and was desperate enough to take shelter in a noble's mansion. Then he woke up on a battlefield and once the fight was over discovered the noble that lived there had taken his blood and enslaved him. He'd spent more than _eight hundred years_ not even trying to break free, doing _nothing_ but waiting for his Master's return while the Union tortured tens of thousands of innocent people and damn near conquered the world.

There was nothing he could do now about what happened. Nothing. He, he just had to move forward.

And make certain it never happened again. To him, or _anyone_ else.

There was a knock at the door. "Boss?" he heard, the voice worried under an attempt to seem cheerful and friendly so he didn't get worried for them. "I managed to get into some more files."

The ones he couldn't access because he had no idea what the 'him' that did that research would have chosen as the password. "Thank you, Tao," he said.

* * *

"How is he?" Regis asked first thing when the Tao and Takeo were able to sneak away to meet him and Seira at the coffee shop.

"It's still not safe for you to come home," Takeo was the one to say apologetically, but they needed to know for their own safety.

"We brought you the things from your rooms you asked for," Tao said, holding up cheerfully-colored tote bags he'd brought to hold Regis and Seira's things. They all needed something cheerful, right. "I'd offer to bring you your homework, but Ikhan said he'd e-mail it to you along with videos of the lectures."

Seira nodded, taking the bags from him and setting them down by her feet, not minding the designs. "Are we still enrolled?"

"Last I checked," Tao said, scratching the back of his head. "I told the school that he's hit hard by losing a kid he was taking care of – I didn't tell Boss I told them that – so they're not expecting him to come in. He finished going through the documents in the house that he can get at – he doesn't remember his passwords – and now he's researching things online. He hasn't even wanted to go to the school." He didn't say that was because Frankenstein didn't want to know what he'd find when he looked at the curriculum. Did he think he'd been brainwashed into indoctrinating people to worship the nobles or something?

 _No,_ because Boss' Master – because _he_ wasn't like that.

Hadn't been like that.

Raizel _wouldn't_ have.

But how was Tao supposed to convince Boss of that when he couldn't say why he was so certain? Yes, _he'd_ spent his lifeforce for them, but when Boss heard about the Awakenings, that a noble took their blood, Tao saw blue eyes grow cold and angry, thinking that Raizel had contracted and enslaved Tao and Takeo too. He wasn't going to believe a word any of them said about the nobles. Any of the nobles.

Not when he'd warned Regis and Seira to get lost or he'd kill them. They were _kids_ and he'd filled the air above their heads with those dark javelins, even _thrown_ some. It hadn't made any sense, until Boss told them that the last thing he remembered he was being chased by Regis' grandpa, and there was no way he would have served a noble unless that noble mind-controlled him?

Having to watch Raizel die, and then before any of them could even begin to process it, Boss saying things like _that_? Throwing the mini nobles out of what was their home too?

Tao and Takeo were enhanced humans, but even if M-21 started out human, that werewolf heart put him on thin ice. That was why they'd asked M-21 not to come with them to see Regis and Seira: if the DA-5 members got caught, they were a lot more likely to not be kicked out. They were human, and in need of protection.

At least the boss still wanted to protect people, just… Nobles weren't people to the new Frankenstein, or actually the old Frankenstein, and M-21 was probationary, as long as he didn't act too much like a werewolf or attack humans or something.

M-21 had tried to hide his flinch when the Boss said that, and thank goodness Tao had managed to cover the slip by telling Boss of course M-21 was horrified by Boss thinking he'd do something like that!

If Boss found out that M-21 had put human children in danger for fun…

Maybe, maybe Tao should be trying to convince M-21 to join Seira in the hotel suite she'd booked for herself and Regis.

No, that was a lost cause. M-21 wasn't going to abandon Frankenstein when he was like this.

Tao couldn't either.

"Ikhan, Yuna and Shinwoo are getting worried that we won't let them see us," Regis said, but shook his head after a moment. "If Frankenstein thinks that even _he_ would actually do something with so little class, then of course he won't tolerate us being anywhere near children. We will simply have to install skype so they can see we are well."

Unlike Rai.

Those words, that name, hung in the air. None of them could say it. None of them had a chance to deal with it yet, not when Seira needed to grab Regis and run when Frankenstein threatened them with Dark Spear and actually charged Regis with it when the Landegre stared at him in shock – and Regis introducing himself as a Landegre couldn't have helped when the last thing Boss remembered Regis' Grandpa was chasing him.

Tao had thought that Regis' Grandpa and Boss were basically friends, but the hard-eyed Boss waiting for them back at home… Tao believed him, when he said he hadn't had any friends in decades.

They couldn't just leave him like this, after everything he'd done for them. After everything both of them had done for them. That was why Seira and Regis were staying in town – that was why Seira was _letting_ Regis stay in town even though he was a kid and she was responsible for him – when this boss was a vampire hunter and might go out hunting.

* * *

When Takeo answered the intercom, his breath caught in his throat. He couldn't help rushing to the door, but he had to warn them that, "Frankenstein will attack you if he sees you."

Calm red eyes set in a gold-skinned face didn't bother to respond, other than by holding out a sheaf of papers.

Takeo took them, noticing the drop of blood that must have hit the right side of the stack and soaked through. His eyes widened when he saw it was a list of names. "Is this…"

But they had already turned to go. No! "Wait!" he pleaded.

They stopped, but did not turn around. Black fabric with gold piping outlined thick shoulders, a curvy form. They looked nothing like Raizel, except for the red eyes all nobles had. "I am not the Previous Noblesse."

"Frankenstein… Frankenstein thinks that Sir Raizel trespassed on his will."

They half-turned, and Takeo saw them – her? – give him a blank look. Maybe it was learning to read Sir Raizel that made him think they were wondering what Takeo thought they were supposed to do about this. "If he becomes a threat to the nobles, he will become someone I must eliminate," they warned Takeo. "The Eighth Noblesse spared too many for too long. You are one of those who paid the price. Frankenstein would not have been forced to kill if it were not for the Previous Noblesse's lenience. There are still sentences I must carry out," they said, and turned to leave once again.

"But… these names…" Takeo pleaded, because this was the noble who had hatched from the egg-shaped field of blood that appeared when Raizel used the last of his power and fell apart into shining rubies that flowed around them before gathering above the battlefield.

"We inherit our predecessor's knowledge of what must be done," said the Ninth Noblesse. "The Eighth Noblesse would have preferred Frankenstein's hatred to Frankenstein's grief." And they walked away. Back to the work of leveling Union bases and killing almost everyone.

Back to being a living soul weapon born to defend the nobles and their honor, after everything Frankenstein and the Previous Lord had done to give Raizel a life that was _more_ than that.

The Union wasn't going to survive this. That… should have been more of a comfort to Takeo than it was.

The war was won, but they had lost the home they wanted to protect. Without Seira, without Regis, without _him_ in the front room drinking tea and listening to his friends' chatter, with M-21 on thin ice, with no idea if he'd still be living here next week or not…

Even if M-21 was thrown out, Tao and Takeo couldn't leave. Because that would leave Frankenstein alone with his hatred of nobles. If Raizel had lived long enough to make a last request, everyone knew what it would have been.

Not to leave Frankenstein alone.

* * *

"Do you think the memories will ever come back?" Tao asked hopefully, hovering there in the lab.

Hard eyes looked at him and scowled, but not at him. "I should be trying to recover them. They are _my_ memories." And he shouldn't want to let a noble get away with tampering with his mind. "But… I've seen how nobles made their slaves, _worshippers_ behave. I've read those texts. I don't _want_ to remember being such a servile creature, knowing that thing had my soul and being _happy_ about it." He shuddered. "Eight hundred. More than _eight hundred years_ under that monster's control…"

" _He…"_ Tao swallowed. "He really wasn't like that."

"Like what?"

"He wouldn't force people to do things against their wills."

"So you believe he wouldn't have made me do anything against my will. Yet clearly he did make me do things I would _never_ have done of my own free will. Like _serve a noble_ when humanity needed me. Like make myself responsible for hundreds of children when the Union was hungry for hostages to use against me and the last child I…" Frankenstein winced and rubbed his forehead. "Well, between myself, you and Takeo, I should have enough samples of noble brainwashing to examine with this equipment that I might be able to make some headway undoing the damage."

"The damage in my head, and Takeo's… that's the Union, Boss. It wipes the memories of all the test subjects." Nothing to do with _him_.

"You also show signs of…" He shook his head. "There's no point, when you won't believe me."

"I want to look at the data," Tao said, because he wasn't going to just leave it like that. Didn't want to be stuck wondering what made Frankenstein so certain. Wanted to believe in Raizel. "He _died_ for us. For humans."

"And he wiped my memory so I wouldn't remember what was done to me whenever my enhancements finally managed to restore me to my right mind without that piece of his soul keeping me in my place. So everyone would believe he was some kind of saint, a benevolent _god_ , instead of the protector of the nobles doing his job by putting down a human organization." Frankenstein gave Tao a disgusted look that made him wince even knowing it wasn't really _him_ that Boss held in such contempt.

"If the nobles really did leave me unsupervised for centuries, then I should have been able to find _some_ crack in the mind control over that time… unless it was either completely successful in overwriting my will with the slave persona, in which case the person who accumulated those centuries of memory wasn't _me_ , or the part of my soul that remained myself locked helplessly away inside my head _was driven crazy the same way Dark Spear was."_

Boss shook his head, eyes dark, not even looking at Tao. More to himself than to the other enhanced human, he said, "I need to fight them. I can't start screaming or it will take me too long to stop."

And who was them, Tao wondered. The Union… or the nobles?

* * *

He had to test his ability to operate in this modern world, and verify he was able to obtain supplies. Running errands should have given him a distraction, something to do other than obsess about the nobles for a few hours, but that was before he sensed one of them.

He found the noble and the red-headed student at a coffee shop. He wondered if the name was a coincidence – he would have to look it up later. "I told you that if you went near my students I would send you to eternal sleep, whether you take the appearances of children or not."

"Chairman?" Shinwoo asked, but he couldn't afford to take his eyes away from the noble.

Seira J. Loyard, according to Tao. The grim reaper clan. He was ordered to teach her, apparently, so who knew how much she knew about his abilities and secrets. Fighting her, he would be fighting someone _he'd_ trained. And she wasn't the only noble he'd trained while he was under the control of the protector of the nobles.

She almost certainly knew more about what he could do with Dark Spear than _he_ did right now, when he remembered using it in battle only once. He'd managed to summon it to frighten her and the Landegre away from him and the other enhanced humans before they took the Noblesse's freed slaves for themselves, but the _agony_ of it! He'd barely been able to think, if he was forced to keep it out any longer… How had he managed it before?

He had to bluff: he couldn't let this clan leader know how easy it would be to get him back under control. He couldn't abandon his student, either.

Someone suddenly appeared at his side. "But Miss Seira _is_ your student, Boss," Tao said, daring to tug at the sleeve of his labcoat.

It didn't help to be reminded that the nobles could have all his secrets, and who knew what research he was made to conduct. Before, he would have been somewhat secure in the knowledge that the nobles were arrogant about their superiority and wouldn't have thought they needed a human's help to grow stronger. The natural assumption would have been that the Noblesse banned him from all research so their inferiors couldn't use Frankenstein's work to challenge them. That was before finding out he was made to teach nobles.

"You knew about this?" he asked Tao. That a two-hundred-year-old noble had accosted a teenage boy?

"Well, someone needed to chaperone, right?" Tao laughed nervously.

He couldn't afford to make a scene, be thought a madman. Not when he had this _lab_ and hadn't yet learned everything he would need to build another one, even if there were others at safehouses. "You are coming with me," he told Tao. Home, where they would discuss this.

' _Home_ ,' he thought, as he turned to look at the noble. "And _you_ are leaving."

She nodded, composed, and stood. The boy looked disappointed but understanding.

Frankenstein turned and left before he could be subjected to sympathy for the loss of 'Rai' or be expected to give the boy sympathy for the loss of his friend instead of congratulations on his narrow escape.

* * *

Not even two days later there was another clan leader at the door. He knew this one.

"So you're here to bring me back under control." Damn, damn _damn_ he cursed behind a façade of ready anger. He was _not_ prepared to fight a clan leader, especially not a clan leader he'd apparently _trained_ in the past. This noble would know the techniques he'd developed with Dark Spear when Frankenstein still had little idea how to manage what Tao had described.

"No," the Landegre clan leader said. "I'm here because my grandson is desperate enough with worry he might put himself in your reach trying to get through to you, and Sir Cadis Etrama di Raizel wouldn't have wanted you to go back to your old ways." He let out a huff of breath. "Also because it's long since time I went into eternal sleep. Those children have too much living to do."

"I should kill you. If it weren't for you I wouldn't have ended up in that accursed house."

"If it weren't for me you wouldn't have started making a mockery out of all of the clan leaders and cutting up Ragar Kertia on a regular basis when I was responsible for him," Gejutel said. "If you hadn't sought refuge with the Noblesse, you would have been brought to the Lord." The Landegre clan leader paused, then winced at the thought. "But," he rallied, "I can let you see for yourself."

Frankenstein laughed. "You think I'll let you use your mind control on me?"

"You contracted with the Noblesse, so you have his powers. Including the power to read the minds of clan leaders."

His eyes widened slightly. If that was true? If the Noblesse had miscalculated that badly? "As though I'll lower my guard around you long enough to find those memories. You're a clan leader: you might still be betting on your ability to fight off a human's mind control."

"I'm not a clan leader anymore. I have passed down Regasus."

Oh?

Gejutel snorted. "As though I'm leaving my grandson around you without a soul weapon to protect him when you've lost your mind like this. You challenged the _Lord_ once: I can't imagine what insane things you'd do without Sir Cadis Etrama di Raizel to be a restraining influence."

Restrain him. Control him…

Gejutel sighed. "Regis has refused to leave. I warned him that I never trusted you, but he still admires you and your loyalty to the Noblesse."

"Loyalty?" Frankenstein threw his head back and laughed. "So now he wants his own loyal human contractor to worship him?"

"Worship him?" Gejutel snorted. "You devised an experiment to condition the True Noblesse to leave his window with pastries and left the document out where Urokai could see it."

Urokai was one of the traitor clan leaders. "Why would you possibly do this out of the goodness of your heart, instead of just to make me retract my words and protect the honor of the nobles."

"Honor?" Gejutel laughed at him, seemingly jolly but Frankenstein heard the edge to it. "What honor? Half the clan leaders joined the Union! What honor is there in being a clan leader, or a noble, after that? But my best friend, someone I fought alongside for millennia to protect the humans, plotted the murder of my son, almost the entire clan I was sworn to protect. I'm old, tired and foolishly sentimental, but I can't stand the thought of someone else feeling that betrayed for no good reason but your own foolishness. I'd give anything to believe Lagus hadn't done such a thing, but I have to face reality. I won't have you moping over here worrying my grandson because you refuse to face the facts when they don't support your prejudices. Aren't you the scientist always so arrogant because –"

Frankenstein launched a mental attack while the noble was distracted with his lecture.

He saw Gejutel and Ragar track him to the manor – Gejutel's thought that it was only a formality to go in, because a criminal couldn't have chosen a worse place to hide. If he killed weak humans for his experiments, the Noblesse would sentence him, but the Lord had wanted to see him alive. They would have to hope they were in time to rescue him from Cadis Etrama di Raizel, before the Noblesse had to spend any more of his lifespan. If only he hadn't been so easily fooled! If the young Noblesse had to suffer for his mistake…

But instead of killing the human, "He works here," the Noblesse volunteered when they found them together, and Frankenstein saw his own shocked face.

" _Because I'm all alone,"_ Raizel was saying, while Gejutel processed that the human had just been named a servant of the _Noblesse,_ a servant of justice, and no noble's aura came from Frankenstein… No, surely not. A Noblesse make a contract?

They would have to report to the Lord.

Frankenstein saw the Lord's reaction to what Frankenstein had said about criminals among the nobles, the 'not this shit again' and the heads that rolled, as Ragar considered going to the Noblesse's to see if Frankenstein was willing to spar and Gejutel had to go along to protect the young fool.

Complaints about Frankenstein barging in on Raizel's meetings with clan leaders. Frankenstein remodeling the house to suit himself, for something to do when he wasn't trying to kill Ragar with Dark Spear – also something to conceal the lab and researches he had to be creating.

Ragar reporting staying for dinner once, a table normally set for two, Frankenstein trying to coach the silent Raizel to participate in conversation, the Noblesse concealing awkwardness in silence and glancing at Frankenstein. Saw him sigh at the noble with a familiar exasperated patience. A slow student, but… but one he was fond of.

Saw Raizel save him.

When Frankenstein woke in that memory, he was worried he might have harmed a friend, and Gejutel didn't tell him what it cost Raizel, didn't want him to know. Because there truly was no obligation, it would be shameful if there was. But Frankenstein still demanded answers of the Lord, eyes wild and worried – was Cadis Etrama di Raizel still seriously wounded?

When Gejutel next went to check on them, because even if he'd technically reached his majority that human was still one of Ragar's playmates, on that clan leader's level, and they'd contracted? Frankenstein had never thought to see himself so, so… gazing at something precious, taking the best of care of a treasure.

And care was the word, because even if Gejutel couldn't see it, Frankenstein could read in his own actions the worry of a doctor for a patient, that the way he now fussed over Raizel was born of the wish that Raizel be alright. Fondness, not worship.

The Noblesse vanished and he recognized his own rage, because how _dare_ they fail to find Raizel, he wouldn't trust _any_ of them until he found the Noblesse. Didn't they understand that he was sick? How could they be failing to find him when he needed help!

In the modern day, a miracle for Gejutel to see Cadis Etrama di Raizel alive. If Raizel wanted to stay here with the human instead of returning to do his duty and protect the nobles from the traitors, that was the Previous Lord's wish and certainly something the Noblesse deserved.

That infuriating Frankenstein had done the impossible yet again.

No one could keep it up forever.

Frankenstein's rage when Gejutel let Raizel spend his life for the good of the nobles and the Lord – how it was Raizel's own choice to sacrifice himself for his duty, but he would not return to hibernation when he loved the school and the humans here so much. The life Frankenstein had given him.

The gilded cage that kept him from Lukedonia, from avenging Gejutel's son, but Frankenstein revealed that Raizel had not recovered and likely never would. Not after Gejutel made it even worse.

Raizel… Watching him in Gejutel's memories, Frankenstein saw a noble refined and unpracticed, strong and delicate, able to compel even clan leaders and still so _lonely_. Kind and giving, their protector and yet the clan leaders feared him (where they should fear the loss of their honor, not the person who would save them from dishonoring themselves).

Oh.

So that was why even with his memories sealed, he still felt recognition gazing at Raizel's face.

Looking into a mirror.

He hadn't realized how lonely he was until he woke up in this time to an apprentice he couldn't send away for Tao's own safety when Tao was strong enough to handle most noble criminals – in fact, when Tao could use Dark Spear, Tao was stronger than him right now. To Takeo calling him down to dinner, reminding him of what a normal schedule was. To M-21 cleaning without needing to be asked, out of consideration for how mess upset him.

A house that wasn't a base, empty save for him and any test subjects, but a _home_ , where they worried about him and worked so hard to try to make him comfortable there. When he thanked them for it, they said that this was simply what they wanted to do, that they were doing for him what he and the Noblesse had done for them. Given them a home when all they remembered was the Union, because their memories of when they were loved were taken from them.

So they didn't know what they were missing, until they came to his home, to Cadis Etrama di Raizel's home, the way Frankenstein had, once upon a time.

And his heart tried to tear itself from his chest as he stumbled forward, reaching out for something that was no longer within his grasp, tearing through the seal on his memories to find Raizel's fear that Dark Spear would take advantage of Frankenstein's grief to consume him. Vanishing into nothingness for their sakes, and he still was willing to be forgotten by the one he loved most if it would help Frankenstein live on.

 _He is gone. He is gone. My other half is no more._

 _I will never be whole again._

He was far too old to cry. It didn't seem to matter.

"This never happened," he told Gejutel after they pulled apart.

"Of course not," the noble agreed, shuddering at the thought of anyone else finding out about this indignity. He still patted Frankenstein on the back awkwardly one last time, clearing his throat as he regained his composure.

"Good," Frankenstein said, wiping his eyes with one of the ends of Gejutel's stole.

* * *

Footsteps echoed in the vast hall. There were eight statues in front of the Noblesse's sanctuary. Before there were seven, but now the gap was filled.

All of the statues were larger than life. He couldn't reach up to touch Raizel's shoulder, not without flying.

No. Not Raizel's shoulder. The statue's.

Before he left Lukedonia to find Raizel, the empty space before the Sanctuary was proof that the piece of Master's energies in his soul wasn't something that remained behind after his death, but a sign Master still lived. Now, instead of Cadis Etrama di Raizel by his side, there was a substance that pretended to be mere marble before the sacred shrine of the avatars of Power.

Futile to wish that it was possible to exchange the two, he thought as the silence dragged on, the modified humans, Seira and Regis hovering around him worriedly. Dimly, he heard them talking about the statue, but…

"-smile." That word in Regis' hushed voice caught his attention.

He'd studied the other statues. Their expressions varied. Two wore masks of noble reserve, another sadness at those they had to kill. Anger. Solemnity. Even annoyance, on the face of the muscle-bound Noblesse.

But his Master smiled, so happy and so gentle.

"Master…" he whispered, reaching out to touch the carved Ye Ran uniform. So in the end, at least he had… Happy. He had managed to grant his master happiness.

* * *

It was a month shy of graduation when Raskreia appeared, escorted by Gejutel and Rozaria and dragging the new Noblesse behind her.

Only she looked like an old Noblesse.

Takeo drew in a breath when he saw her, because Raizel looked like that sometimes, near the end. Hair gone from black to grey, skin no longer smooth and sculpted but sagging. Not wrinkled. Wrinkles were caused by repeated folding as the skin loses elasticity. This Noblesse was both too expressionless and too new to have made _any_ expression enough times for it to be marked on their face.

But no, there was something Takeo could read from her now, in that stiff back and annoyance. She was not happy with the Lord, it looked like.

"With my authority as the Lord, I have ordered her to never use her power again," Raskreia said to Frankenstein. "I replaced some of her lifeforce, but Gejutel said you might have other ideas."

* * *

Frankenstein smiled down at her. "What's your name?"

"Cadis Etrama di Raizel," she said, chin held high. "The Thunder and Lightning of Heaven's Justice."

He couldn't force another name on her.

And… he didn't want to. Not because he wanted to tell himself that the same name made them the same person, but… it was something inherited. Something that came to her through Raizel, along with the title and the duty.

 _Cadis_ , he already knew. _I'm going to call her Cadis._

A child born of his Master.

How much of her lifespan had she already lost, while he rejoiced that the Noblesse was _far away from him_ and that taking out Union bases ('obviously' for the sake of making sure humanity couldn't challenge the nobles) might weaken it enough that he could try sealing this one for another eight hundred years, or more?

His Master's child. Proof that his Master had existed.

She would remain a child in need of looking after for a hundred ninety-nine and a half years.

After that… He would have to hope he could find another reason to live.


	8. Take Responsibility

_I have been meaning to add something to this collection to offset last chapter being horribly tragic. This bunny came from when Gejutel offered Tao, Takeo and M-21 contracts as an apology for upsetting them as a secret test of character for Regis._

* * *

The three of them stood there watching that menacing aura flicker around their boss. Frankenstein sat in silence until Raizel arrived from class. The principal gestured for them to sit down as he poured his Master tea, and finally sat down himself. "Since that damnable old man has run off back to Lukedonia," Frankenstein said through gritted teeth, "it falls to me to explain this to you."

Tao stopped fiddling with his ears (pointy, not pointy, pointy, not pointy – he'd already done the obvious thing with his teeth and wanted to see what else he could do) and listened attentively.

"Why didn't it work for me?" M-21 wanted to know. "I was stronger for a little while, but that's it."

"Because you have a werewolf heart," Frankenstein told him with a disappointed frown. It looked like he'd thought at least one of them had the sense to turn down that offer, but apparently not. "The power within you roused itself to fight off noble control."

M-21 looked thoughtful.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but yes, you could get a temporary power boost, something like the D, from replicating the effect. It won't be as strong as when Master Awakened you, but it might be useful in emergencies," Frankenstein conceded. "Now. _What did the three of you think you were doing_?"

"He offered?" Tao shrugged. "And he's Regis' grandpa, and you guys know him too. The Union's going to be after us as soon as they find out we're still alive."

"It's kind of you to allow us to stay here," Takeo said, "but we should pull our own weight." They couldn't count on these two nobles to protect them all of the time, especially after Takeo attacked Frankenstein. "If one of us is captured, we may still need the power to extract them from the Union."

"That was why I made you that D, in case you ran off to get yourselves killed without backup." The noble scientist looked them over before sighing – still irritated, but not angry. For now. "What am I going to do with you three?"

Takeo blinked. "If you want us to leave…" Had they done something to insult their hosts by accepting another noble's power while they lived under the roof of two other nobles? Takeo had noticed that they felt not the same, but similar – less alike than Takeo and Tao did now, in some ways more alike than Gejutel and Regis, who were members of the same clan.

"Of course we're not going to throw you out after this." Frankenstein told them. "I'll need someone to housesit while I go rescue that irritating old man."

His Master nodded over his tea.

"He offered to conceal our presence here," the blond noble continued. "I thought he might encounter some difficulties there – he's a terrible liar and the current Lord is quite sharp – but he wouldn't have made contracts unless he was expecting to be sentenced to forced eternal sleep." He scowled. "I'm sure he thought it would all work out very neatly – the two of you would be free from the contract, and with more power you'd have less need of Master's protection. Blasted interfering old man… Oh, it works out _very_ nicely for him – this way, Regis will inherit a complete soul weapon while he's coming of age. I'm sure it didn't even _occur_ to him that the child would be left to mourn his only remaining family."

The black-haired noble set down his teacup. "I will go as well."

Frankenstein looked taken aback. "Master, not to… deal with Gejutel yourself?"

Cadis Etrama di Raizel shook his head slowly. "The ban on contracts is by the Lord's authority. Gejutel has not abused his power over these children."

"I should certainly hope not," Frankenstein said, but there was relief mixed with the air of slight threat.

"Contracts are banned? Even for clan leaders?" Tao asked.

" _Especially_ for clan leaders, I'm sure."

Raizel nodded.

"We had the Previous Lord's encouragement to make a contract – not that we would have let _that_ stop us – but after so many clan leaders turned traitor, for a clan leader to make a contract with Union enhanced humans? Even Gejutel would know better than to ask for it like that unless he wanted to be sent into eternal sleep. Well," said Frankenstein, "we'll see about _that_."

Takeo didn't need to look over at Tao to know that he had noticed it and would ask. "You have a contract?"

"Yes." Frankenstein smiled. "Not like yours – ours is a True Contract. Your contract is one-way – Gejutel gave you power. If your soul desired not just power but a bond, and used that power to reach back, to join itself with the soul of the other person, that is what creates a True Contract. Both souls must desire it." He looked at his Master for a moment with quiet adoration in his eyes.

Silence lingered as Frankenstein drank in the sight of his master and Raizel drank his tea.

The bell rang for lunch and Raizel stood. Frankenstein bowed as he left the room. "I'll put together housesitting instructions for you three, and whatever medical knowledge you might need to look after yourselves," he told them. "They won't know what Gejutel's done right away, so I'll have time to make plans. If anything, this might work out nicely…" His expression grew calculating.

They beat a hasty retreat before the scientist could start laughing maniacally.

* * *

"So you're the ones that confused Miss Seira," said the young-looking blond noble. Even if he hadn't frozen the school, M-21 would have been wary of him – judging from Frankenstein, blond nobles were bad news. "That power… Landegre?!" He snarled at them, mocking composure lost. "How could Regis associate with enhanced humans made with what they learned from the slaughter of his clan?! I'll kill you all! Grandia!" he called, knives stabbing into M-21's back an instant later, and if Miss Seira hadn't arrived and summoned a shield over them, they wouldn't have lived to see how… _displeased_ Frankenstein was by the damage to his school when he arrived (or revealed himself?) seconds later.

"I suppose I can't expect Ragar to have raised you better than this," Frankenstein said, hauling Rael back to the house over the rooftops.

In chains. They crackled with that dark energy of his, but they were chains, not high-tech restraints.

Seira and Regis didn't think there was anything strange about it, so maybe they were a noble thing? Well, Seira didn't seem to think that anything improper was happening, but Regis was a little boggled by the fact the houseowner had taken down a pureblood like Rael, and that Rael had a soul weapon, whatever that was. Frankenstein had demonstrated that he was better at Rael's own moves than he was, hitting him in the back a few times to end the fight quickly.

Frankenstein dropped Rael in the living room and turned to the door, bowing. It opened for Raizel a moment later. M-21 looked at the two DA enhanced humans, but they didn't seem to have sensed Raizel following them either. "Frankenstein… why do you have those?" Raizel asked, looking at the chains with deep disappointment. "Have you gone back to your old ways?"

"No, Master," Frankenstein said quickly, worried by Raizel's evident disapproval. "Since we kept having noble visitors, I thought it might be useful to be able to restrain them without sending them into eternal sleep…?"

Raizel gave him a long look as Frankenstein sweated, before turning to look down at Rael. "Were you courteous?" he asked.

Rael tried to say something through the gag, but Raizel turned away - waiting for Frankenstein to answer the question?

"I didn't provoke this fight! For once," Frankenstein admitted when Raizel kept looking at him. "He drew a soul weapon to attack these three and damaged the school, Master. The children could have been injured, I had to deal with him swiftly."

"You did not break your seal," Raizel allowed. "He bears something holding _that_ power."

"Mmmmmphph-mmph!" Rael tried to growl angrily through the gag as Frankenstein frisked him, finally drawing something out of thin air near Rael's hip.

With a flick of his wrist, he unfurled the scroll.

Takeo couldn't read it, but Miss Seira and Regis immediately knelt, reading it. Miss Seira bowed her head. "The Loyard clan leader heeds the summons of the Lord," she said, and stood.

"I am not to return with her?" Regis asked, worried.

"It appears that it is time for us to return to Lukedonia."

Frankenstein bowed. "I will make the arrangements, Master." Turning to Regis, he said, "I've asked these three to house-sit while we're in Lukedonia. Since you'll be the oldest, would you mind keeping an eye on them for us until we get back?"

Regis blinked.

"How is he the oldest?" M-21 wanted to know.

Frankenstein pointed at the noble. "One hundred and ninety-nine years." Then at M-21. "Three years. None of you four are quite mature yet," he said, ignoring the fact that M-21 was physically mature, "but he has more life experience and command training. At least, I certainly hope he does, as a future clan leader?" he asked Miss Seira, who nodded.

"It is the least we can do to repay your hospitality," she told Frankenstein.

* * *

Frankenstein's eyebrows rose when he exited the plane onto Lukedonia's airstrip (and its existence was already a good sign). It was immediately obvious that their tactics had certainly improved since he left. If he wasn't mistaken everyone present was a clan leader. That would be Mergas and Ru flanking the Lord, Bluster and Elenor hanging back a little to provide cover fire – possibly literally, in the Elenor's case – and the Kertia would either be guarding Gejutel (they would be the best choice for it) or Ragar had taught them _not_ to make themselves immediately obvious.

Good. 'The enemy of my enemy' after all – the Union needed to be destroyed for the good of both species.

" _You_ ," said the princess – the Lord – with an undertone of 'I _knew_ it' even though he'd asked Seira to obtain clearance to land and she had said the people she was staying with were with her but hadn't given names.

"I greet the Lord," he said, bowing formally.

"None of your bullshit," she ordered him. He saw the Mergas blink, but he was too professional to look away from the potential attacker. "Why have you returned to Lukedonia, traitor?"

"I haven't betrayed anyone," he said, trying to make it flippant but the thought of the lies the traitors had spread about his master infuriated him.

"You stand there with blue eyes and tell me you ever obeyed the laws of the nobles?" When they were required to have red eyes, so humans could identify them.

"Of course I didn't," he said. "I'm a human; what do the laws of the nobles have to do with me?"

He heard Miss Seira pause, coming down the airplane's steps behind him. The other clan leaders were equally boggled – it was so easy to read on their faces. They were so _young_ – not quite high school students, but college students. Still learning, but on their own to sink or swim and aware of it. Responsible for their own success or failure – and in their cases, the survival of their people. "A human?" the Mergas was the one to ask.

"So he harbored a member of the Union all along." Raskeria's expression hardened, if that was possible.

"Excuse me, I'll beg you _not_ to compare me to those traitors to humanity. As I've said, I have never betrayed anyone."

"But you cannot be an ordinary human."

If he had his way, if he was able to spread his enhancement technology so humans no longer died of disease and old age he would be, but unfortunately, "No."

"So you are one of those who betrayed humanity for power," the Ru said, disgusted. He assumed a ready position, ready for her to give the order.

"I am an _enhanced human_." Frankenstein spoke slowly and clearly, as though to a particularly dimwitted child. "And you're a clan leader. Some of the clan leaders betrayed my Master and the nobles for power. Does the fact you're a clan leader make you no different from Lagus Tradio? The fact that some traitors brought dishonor on the clan leaders doesn't make all of you dishonorable." He made it obvious he was looking them over. "At least I hope it doesn't. I knew there was corruption among the clan leaders when I came to Lukedonia to find and destroy those responsible for the slaughter of humans, but I wasn't expecting almost half of you to be among the criminals." He chuckled. "One human against six clan leaders isn't good odds, even for me…" And here he was faced with six clan leaders and the Lord.

"So you became an ally of their leader?"

Frankenstein couldn't keep his aura from pulsing then. "How dare they… First they betray him and send him into sleep for eight hundred and twenty years, and then they blame their treason on its victim… I will never forgive them…"

Even Raskreia had never seen Dark Spear's aura loosened this much. The Elenor hurriedly waved for Seira to come over towards her, away from the dark aura and out of the line of fire.

He forced himself back under control with a deep breath, making a show of straightening his sleeves and regaining his composure. "Eight hundred and twenty years ago, my Master, who almost never left his manor unless summoned by the Lord, vanished in the middle of the afternoon, without a word to anyone. I searched for centuries and even _I_ could not find him. Not hibernating within a sanctuary." He met Raskreia's eyes. "The traitors tried to assassinate my Master. He survived, but only by sealing himself within a sanctuary to hibernate until he recovered. Their attack wounded him so deeply that he slept for eight hundred and twenty years."

"Eight hundred and twenty years?" Even Raskreia looked boggled for a moment.

Frankenstein nodded. "He only awakened this year. He should have spent more time asleep: he is still not recovered, but he was worried and trying to wake as soon as possible. Gejutel offered to conceal my Master's awakening until he regained some of his strength so that the traitors wouldn't hear that he had survived and try to finish him off while he is still weak."

"Is this true, Cadis Etrama di Raizel?" the Lord demanded.

"Yes," Master said from the head of the stairs, now that Seira had cleared the way. Frankenstein moved so that he would be standing at Raizel's right hand once his master descended the stairs. "The Noblesse pays his respects to the Lord." He bowed his head briefly after setting foot upon the earth of Lukedonia.

"The Lord greets the Noblesse."

"What's a Noblesse?" the Bluster clan leader whispered to Seira, earning him a shush from the Elenor.

"You claim that you are not allied with the traitor clan leaders, even though they were once your most loyal followers?"

" _Ahem_ ," Frankenstein said, standing stiffly. _He_ was Master's most loyal follower, thank you. "They _kept him under observation_ because they were _planning to force him into eternal sleep_."

"Frankenstein." His master's tone was patient, but still rebuking.

"Yes, Master." He bowed, and remained standing facing him, not the Lord. Master wore his Lukedonian uniform, not the school uniform: probably a fortunate choice, as much as Frankenstein wished he hadn't used the power. White was the Union color.

"I am told that I was asleep for eight hundred and twenty years. A great deal has changed in that time." There was sorrow in Master's regal bearing as he looked over the clan leaders, remembering the clan leaders he had known.

Of course Raskreia would notice, "You 'were told that?'"

"I was not aware of the passage of time. When I went to sleep within the sanctuary, Frankenstein lived in Lukedonia. Ragar and Gejutel had no children."

"My father was still Lord."

Raizel nodded.

"He wanted you to be Lord."

"I refused."

For the first time, Raskreia allowed herself to look surprised. "Refused?"

"He knew that I am not qualified to be Lord. He wished for me to be Lord so that I would no longer be the Noblesse. I refused to take on a duty I could not perform when I must be the Noblesse."

 _Oh_ , that explained a great deal. The Lord surrendered their previous name and nature, their responsibilities as an ordinary noble in order to take up the name and duty of Lord. Taking up a greater duty was the only reason Cadis Etrama di Raizel might ever put aside his duty as Noblesse.

"What is the Noblesse?"

Master was silent, and the Lord's eyes narrowed. "Answer me, Cadis Etrama di Raizel!"

"The Noblesse is the Symbol of Power, who protects the nobles with their strength. It is my duty to send those who have abandoned their honor as nobles into eternal sleep." The traitors. "It is also the duty of the Noblesse to help the Lords gain control over the power of Ragnarok."

"So that is why he thought he could pass Ragnarok down to you."

Raizel shook his head. "We are capable of limiting your power so that you may train without destroying what you wish to protect. A Lord cannot test their abilities against an ordinary noble without sending them to eternal sleep."

Frankenstein's head jerked up. "Master…" From Master's resolute face, yes, he was serious. "It has been eight hundred and twenty years, and you've only just now regained consciousness! You can't serve as _target practice_ for a Lord!"

"It is my duty, Frankenstein."

Why would it be the Noblesse's duty? Because a Noblesse could survive it, albeit at a cost, long enough for the Lord to test different methods and improve their technique. "You would _not_ survive long enough for the experience to be useful to her!"

"As the Avatar of Power, it is my duty to ensure the Avatar of Wisdom may gain the knowledge they require to wield their power."

Think, _think…_ "If her father was adequately trained, all she needs is to equal him, and you'll be satisfied, yes?"

"The difficulty is the vast power of Ragnarok."

"She can set up a specialized sanctuary, the Mergas clan head is still loyal…" When they specialized in shielding. No, if the techniques the nobles had at their disposal were enough, the other Noblesses wouldn't have been asked to use up their lifespan. "Master, _I'll_ train her." Frankenstein said, bringing his hand to his chest.

"It is not your duty to risk-"

"You are my patient and my Master: Yes, it _is_ my duty to save your life. You know that no one knows more than I do about training unconventional abilities and leveraging power. Gaining control over power, for that matter. If I observe the Lord's training and swear to you that I am satisfied, will you refrain from forcing your Lord to murder you?" His body was _shaking_ , Frankenstein realized distantly. He never argued with Master. He didn't _want_ to, but more than that: their wills were one in so many ways, and even when they disagreed (for instance, about the children and their crumbs coming over).

Master regarded him silently. "As long as you are not harmed. I will not release your seal."

No fighting Raskreia himself, but it wasn't as though he'd intended to risk his own skin when he would hopefully just need to do some engineering and leave her to it. Ragar had improved in a few years, and Raskreia was actually intelligent. Master wouldn't demand instant results, and a decade would buy him plenty of time to find a way to help Master. His shoulders slumped with relief as he bowed. "Thank you, Master."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Seira shaking her head. "I do not understand them either."

"That explains why even Seira couldn't tell if they were nobles or not," said the Elenor to the Bluster.

The Mergas was blushing slightly and had to cough into his hand to regain his composure – of course that clan was especially affected by the will to protect. Most of them were minor variations on their parents, but he was grey-haired – and… well, appeared to lack feminine secondary sexual characteristics anyway, nobles as a species only had a single sex and tended not to care about gender aside from the aesthetic. Then again, aesthetics were _very important_ to a species as concerned with elegance as nobles.

And oh? Raskreia looked disgruntled, but that wasn't just 'how dare they imply I might need help.' That was 'and I might need to take them up on it aargh.'

Damn. Frankenstein hoped it really was as simple as he'd said to create an environment where she could safely unleash Ragnarok. He couldn't afford to take that much time away from figuring out how to help Master. Still, the Lord's powers were almost on par with the Noblesse's – perhaps he might learn something useful.

"If you weren't planning to reveal yourselves, then why are you here?" Raskreia asked, quick to cover up any potential sign of weakness.

"When you sent that message to Seira, it was fairly obvious you'd seen through Gejutel. Even _he_ knew that you would. Judging from what he did before he left South Korea, he was planning to submit to forced eternal sleep so that Regis would inherit a complete soul weapon."

"Gejutel was…" The Elenor took a step back.

Frankenstein would have thought he'd have to explain it more, but after the initial shock he saw the clan leaders nodding or bowing their heads. "After what happened to Rousare, of course he wouldn't want Regis to inherit an incomplete soul weapon," said the Ru clan leader.

"The Union is getting bolder," agreed the Mergas.

"I haven't known Regis long, but I think he'd appreciate a living grandfather more. I would have brought him with us so that he could make his feelings known to," yell at, "that stubborn old man, but I'd rather not worry the child. Speaking of children. You." Frankenstein pointed to four o'clock relative to Raskreia. "Ragar always acted with the proper courtesies. I found it hard to believe that a child of his would enter _a school_ , use mind control to freeze everyone there, and begin attacking some of the school's guardians and tearing up the place _with a soul weapon_. What on earth is wrong with Rael, and why is someone that violent allowed to run wild in the human world? Deal with him, or as a human _I_ will deal with it."

"My apologies," said the Kertia when he appeared. "He wished to see Seira, and I wished to give him a reward for good behavior during his confinement. If what you say is true and he has not mended his ways, he will be returned to confinement."

"Miss Seira can confirm what I've told you."

She nodded, mimicking Master's sigh.

"Rael has a _soul weapon_?" The clan leaders' expressions ranged from 'what' to horror.

The Kertia sighed and nodded.

"And you did not tell me this why?" Raskreia wanted to know.

"My parent requested that it be kept a secret, and I have worked hard to insure that my incomplete awakening does not hamper my ability to perform my duties, Lord."

She didn't respond, looking thoughtful.

After losing Rousare – even accompanied by another clan leader with a complete soul weapon – she would be hesitant to use a clan leader with an incomplete awakening as her main scout in the human world.

"I used to train with your father," he told the Kertia. "He was very helpful to me in learning to control my power. I hoped to repay him by helping him refine some of the Kertia clan techniques, and told him how I developed new techniques so he could add to the clan fighting style. As his child, that debt passes on to you. If you would find a sparring partner familiar with your parent's techniques useful, I could use the chance to blow the dust off old skills. I remained in hiding while I searched for my Master all those centuries, but now that he has awakened, I need to be prepared to face those traitors again."

"You fought clan leaders?" asked the Ru.

Frankenstein smirked. "Who do you think took Urokai Agvain's eye? If my spear went only an inch deeper, we'd have one less traitor to worry about."

"I would like to test my skills against yours," was the response, along from a measuring look, and well this was a pleasant surprise.

He heard Master sigh, but honestly, it would be fun and educational as well as necessary, and that was well worth the pain of Dark Spear. "I will authorize you to release your seal for those spars, but be careful, Frankenstein."

"Yes, Master," he said, bowing. That 'be careful' was 'be careful not to hurt the children too much' not 'be careful because you are human and weak and out of practice' but the clan leaders would soon find that out for themselves.

"Tonight is a night of the full moon," Raizel told Raskreia. "I hoped to see if the Previous Lord left a message for me in the Sanctuary at my manor."

"Follow me," Raskreia said, instead of 'I will go with you.' A Lord traveling about the place was already undignified enough without her dancing attendance on someone else, but if there was a message, she would want to see it with her own eyes, without tampering. "Karias, Ludis; return to your posts."

"Yes, Lord."

"Awww, Sis…"

The clan leaders froze, before whirling on the Bluster clan leader with fangs out, composure utterly lost. "Karias!"

"How dare you!"

"Lord, let me punish him!"

He held up his hands. "Whoa, whoa, calm down. I'm the one who's most likely to sense it if they decide to try something."

From the way Raskreia's eyes were tilted just a little upwards, clearly wishing she could outright roll them but she was Lord now and had appearances to maintain, she'd rather have the backstab than Karias around damaging her dignity. If they were fool enough to attack her, then she could just kill them and get rid of the headache they represented.

Frankenstein was regretting needling her in the past now.

A little.

With Master this weak, a Lord could be able to kill him. He wouldn't underestimate Raskreia, not when she must have perceived in the past that Master was unusually strong and since the traitors claimed he was one of them, he would have been one of those she was preparing herself to face.

She could certainly feel that Master was weaker now than before, and unless that was a ruse (trying to hide that he'd enhanced his power, perhaps?), that meant now was the time to finish him off. Before he could heal – he couldn't but she wouldn't know that. Instead, everything hinged on Frankenstein's ability to find a treatment.

Master followed her obediently, and Frankenstein hurried to catch up with them.

Hopefully this would help Raskreia come to a decision about them – Master knew the Previous Lord well. Frankenstein was fairly certain there would be something there, where even Frankenstein couldn't enter.

"Speaking of reunions we'd rather do without," he said, quickening his pace to walk next to Raskreia while her attendees were stunned that he would invade the Lord's personal space (even if he was nowhere near touching her), "I'm also here to make a complaint about Gejutel. He _did something_ right before he returned to Lukedonia, and left me to deal with it. If you don't send him into eternal sleep, then he'd better take responsibility."

* * *

"Lord," Gejutel said gruffly as he knelt in the cell.

"Frankenstein is a human?"

"You thought he was a noble?" he asked, even though he'd been aware that Frankenstein was amused by the lie of omission, planning to reveal his true nature when it would make the best learning experience. Not underestimating humans was an important lesson – if only Urokai had learned it _right_ , it would have been well worth the lost eye – so Gejutel hadn't interfered.

"I thought he was a disobedient gadfly with no respect for the law of the nobles."

"Accurate, Lord," he acknowledged. It seemed she had understood Frankenstein fairly well, then. At least the important aspects.

"Is it true that Cadis Etrama di Raizel slept all this time?"

"That is what they told me when I found them, Lord," he said, hoping that was not a trap, something she was saying to make him confirm that Cadis Etrama di Raizel was awake. "Frankenstein said that he only found his master recently, and Cadis Etrama di Raizel would have sought out Frankenstein immediately after he awakened." Who knew what that scientist would do left to run around loose. "Cadis Etrama di Raizel is attending a school in the human world, Lord. He was not aware that your father had gone into eternal sleep – even Frankenstein knew nothing of what has happened on Lukedonia since his departure, or I'm sure he would have done something about the slander of his Master before this."

"He does have a temper," Raskreia acknowledged. "If he doesn't feel that Cadis Etrama di Raizel should be Lord, then why does he make such a show of his loyalty?"

"Cadis Etrama di Raizel saved Frankenstein's life at the cost of part of his own, and Frankenstein repays his debts." No, there was more to it than that. "Ragar and I were ordered to bring Frankenstein to your father. He came to Lukedonia to evade the knights' pursuit, believing that they wouldn't guess he had the temerity to enter the land of the nobles. We found him on the shore and when he refused to come before your father, we attempted to capture him. He escaped us and sought refuge in Cadis Etrama di Raizel's manor, posing as a servant."

"A human evaded two clan leaders."

"He is a genius, Lord." And Gejutel would take the details of how Frankenstein pulled it off into eternal sleep with him, just like Ragar. "He was injured, so Cadis Etrama di Raizel gave his word to send Frankenstein to the Lord when he healed. Despite his contempt for nobles, Frankenstein felt some gratitude, or perhaps it just amused him to play the role of the servant and irritate the clan leaders. When Urokai challenged Frankenstein to a spar, he showed Frankenstein something and the human was consumed by his weapon. Cadis Etrama di Raizel Awakened him to free him from the weapon."

"An awakening?" He saw her shock that someone else could perform awakenings, when most nobles were let to believe only the Lord and the soul weapons could do that?

"The Noblesse's power over blood is similar to your own, Lord."

"I see."

"No, he is still not capable of wielding Ragnarok or serving as Lord, but you remember your parent, Lord."

"Yes." Yes she did.

"He was trying to make sure that either you or Frankenstein would be willing to handle the actual duties." Because they were both so sharp they could cut themselves while Cadis Etrama di Raizel couldn't figure out how to find his way home without someone there to sense.

"Are you saying my father was willing to entrust the future of the nobles to that human?" Raskreia's eyes narrowed. "Even if he believed it was for the best to destroy the Lord's Authority, to deliberately put an incompetent and an uncaring ruler in charge of Lukedonia when he knew there would be an age of turmoil… That is exactly why half the traitors rebelled." Because they believed the Lords weren't doing their job and ensuring the future of the nobles, that the Previous Lord didn't care about the welfare of the nobles and the current Lord wasn't competent to guide them.

"That is what they claimed." In Lagus' case Gejutel could believe it – his old friend was beginning to wither and might have been led astray by Roctis.

"Get up," she told him.

"Yes, Lord." He stood, glad for the sake of his dignity. A human would have aching knees to worry about, and difficulty standing.

"That is right. I am the Lord."

He nodded. "And I attempted to deceive you." If she didn't punish him, it would undermine her authority.

"And as punishment, I am handing you over to Frankenstein." Raskreia swept out of the room as Ludis opened the door, revealing that Frankenstein had been standing there. Certainly listening.

"Ah, Gejutel," he said, walking forward, making a point of glancing at the bars, amused that the clan leader was locked up like the nobles Frankenstein had used for his experiments. "I've been meaning to have a word with you. About _children who were abused by those who gave them more power for their own purposes_."

Gejutel cleared his throat, reluctant to admit that Frankenstein had scored a point. "I intended for it to be another test of their character, but when they agreed the cheerful one was very persuasive… They would be less of a burden on Cadis Etrama di Raizel if they could protect themselves from the Union, at least long enough to escape." And Regis was fond of them.

"I was going to have them stay here with you. You must be rattling around in that manor house," with no clan to fill it but Regis, "and you're clearly getting senile in your old age. You need caregivers. _But_ , Master wants them to have an ordinary life, and they won't be able to have that here." Not with rising provocations from the Union leading to a dislike of enhanced humans. Frankenstein sighed. "Was it too much to ask to share a quiet home with Master after being separated from him for so long? I need to stay here and train the Lord, although the Previous Lord's idiotic scheme will actually help." Scheme?

They must have found the separated Ragnaroks. Yes: if Raskreia had less power, Raizel was more likely to be able to train her and live, especially with the sword left in his sanctuary to restore his lifespan.

"Someone will need to guard my Master while I'm stuck helping yours. I'm also going to need someone responsible to keep an eye on those enhanced humans you offered contracts and your grandson so they don't destroy my house. And now there's you." Frankenstein smiled. "Fortunately, the Lord is willing to loan me Miss Seira."

* * *

 _And thus, Raizel didn't have to spend enough lifespan for his hair to go grey during the Lukedonia Arc; Gejutel joined the household; Tao acquired a live-in Grandpa; Takeo was put in charge of providing Raizel with tea and cookies; and being in charge of the house while Frankenstein is away lets Seira get some job experience clan leading. Having to be away from Raizel on the weekends gave Frankenstein a lot of frustration to work out, but Raskreia also wanted to beat the crap out of someone after not being able to deal with the traitor clan leaders and the killers of her friends (Rousare and Seira's parent) for so long, so it's a very good thing Frankenstein helped Ludis work out how to make that pocket-dimension thing a two-way trip._

 _We need more Frankenstein and Raskreia interaction - I like the idea that they were rivals in the past because Raskreia figures stuff out_ really fast _and Frankenstein's really not used to people being as smart as or smarter than him (see the Previous Lord interaction)._


End file.
